


Slip the Veil

by ThisBeautifulDrowning



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Cannibalism, Cannibalistic Thoughts, Canon Divergence, Dark Will Graham, M/M, Reunions, Slash, post-mizumono
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-29
Updated: 2014-06-05
Packaged: 2018-01-27 00:42:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1708628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisBeautifulDrowning/pseuds/ThisBeautifulDrowning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>He misses me</i>, Will thought. <i>He wanted what could have been, so much. He was lonely, looking for someone to finally see him for who he is. To accept him as he is. He thought he'd found that someone in me.</i></p><p> </p><p> <i>And how do we feel about that, Mr. Graham?</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> Just another in what I hope will be a giant list of post-Mizumono fics ( as in, written by other people ). Because that ending destroyed me, and left me pretty much staring blankly at the screen for a few days until I word-vomited and this came up. But while canon may sink my ship - or shoot down my slash, rather - I've long since steered a safe vessel along the River Denial; this is what I would like to see. I am under no delusion that I will actually get to see it. Doesn't mean I can't write it. 
> 
> This isn't a fix-it per se: people have died. If you're looking for murder family, go away. If you're looking for murder husbands, stay. If slash isn't your cup of tea, go have a sip somewhere else. 
> 
> ~~I've tentatively set this to span two chapters. I'm about halfway done with the second chapter. There might or might not be a third, depending on how wordy the muse gets.~~ -_- Make that four chapters, the muse got VERY wordy.
> 
> Unbeta'd - feel free to point out any errors you've spotted.

**SLIP THE VEIL**

 

**Chapter One: Aftermath**

 

 

_Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter._

 

_\- E. Hemingway_

 

*

 

Will experienced the aftermath of the night at Hannibal's house as a series of stroboscopic images, burned into his mind: Abigail's empty eyes, the stag’s last gentle breath. Darkness, for a while. Then someone's boot slipping on blood, hands that grabbed him. There was noise, voices, but they were far away.

 

He woke in a hospital. An oxygen mask clung to his face. Every inch of him hurt. Two weeks in a coma, a doctor told him. Lost kidney. Extensive damage to his digestive tract and considerable blood loss. A twelve-inch scar, where Hannibal had -

 

Where Hannibal had gutted him. And then he'd -

 

“Abigail,” Will croaked, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. The doctor gave him a sympathetic look and an awkward pat on the thigh. There were other people in the room – a nurse in pale blue scrubs, a man Will didn't know, in a cheap polyester uniform. They looked at him with pity. Something smooth and calming slipped from the IV into his arm, and Will drifted into glorious oblivion.

 

*

 

The next time Will woke, he felt clearer, if no less fractured. He'd lost all sense of time and had to ask a nurse what day it was. They were slowly weaning him off the morphine, to avoid creating a dependency. In a few days, the nurse explained, the drains would come out. She gave him a sponge bath and helped him sip from a cup. The tepid water tasted better than the richest wine he'd had at Hannibal's table.

 

He caught himself palpating his tender abdomen, to find the empty space left behind by the kidney they'd had to remove. The nurse gently dragged his hand away. He did it again. Kindly, she told him that if he didn't stop doing that, he would have to be restrained.

 

Will stopped doing it.

 

*

 

Days passed, flowing seamlessly from morning into noon into night, with no discernible features. He refused to think. He was afraid what he'd come up with, if he did.

 

*

 

And then he had to.

 

One morning, Alana rolled into Will's hospital room in a wheelchair, dogged by a protesting security guard. She gave the man such a quelling look that he visibly shrank from her, nervously fingering the butt of the revolver in his hip holster while his gaze darted back and forth between Alana and Will.

 

“Am I a prisoner?” Will asked. His voice sounded weak and breathy. The nurses knew by now not to engage him in meaningless small talk.

 

“No, but...” The guard trailed off. Alana was giving him the full brunt of a disapproving stare that had _teeth_ in it. “I'll be outside.” It was directed at Alana. “Call if you need help.”

 

Will's bed was surrounded by portable machines monitoring everything from his oxygen levels to his heart rate. Alana had to make do with parking herself near the foot end, but it was close enough for her to grasp his outstretched hand. She looked exhausted, pale; her hair was lanky, her eyes ringed by blueish shadows. She wore a stiff, white medical corset over her hospital gown, keeping her in an upright position, and there was a curved scar on her forehead, the skin surrounding it puffy and red.

 

Will could barely bring himself to look at her. “Can you – will you be able to -”

 

She squeezed his hand. “I'm looking at months and months of extensive physical therapy, but I'll be able to walk again. I might have a limp. I should get a cane, don't you think? Nothing like Doctor Chilton's, though...his was a bit too much King of Rock'n'Roll for my taste.”

 

Will pulled his hand away. Shame flooded him. Alana was her own woman and made her own decisions, but Will couldn't help feeling responsible for her injuries. He should have been more adamant about warning her – they should have included her in the plan – she had been so _close_ to Hannibal -

 

“It's not your fault, Will,” Alana said quietly.

 

Wasn't it? It had been his idea to lure Hannibal out into the open. He thought he could bait him, but in the end Will had been trapped in his own snare, as much seduced by Hannibal as he had been trying to seduce him. He should have pulled the trigger the moment Hannibal laid a hand against his cheek. Instead, like a deer frozen in the headlights of an approaching car, Will had let Hannibal gut him. Had hoped, even, to die – to escape from the terrible, self-recriminating certainty that he could no more hand Hannibal over to the authorities than he could fully give into the destructive urges within.

 

“I'm so sorry,” Will whispered. He'd done his best to avoid thinking about that night, and with the aid of morphine and sleeping aids had more or less succeeded, but now it all came rushing back. He realized he was _still_ caught in that infinite loop, divided between the loyalty to his good morals and the siren's song of Hannibal's world.

 

He couldn't even bring himself to hate Hannibal. Instead, irrationally, Will missed him. And Abigail. God, _Abigail_.

 

Alana said nothing, only looked at him steadily, her hand now resting over Will's ankle over the thin hospital blanket. A nurse came in with Will's lunch, depositing the tray and walking back out without a word, sensing perhaps that any attempts to break into the silence would be unwelcome by both occupants of the room. The security guard stuck his head around the door, checking up on them, and likewise withdrew without comment. Sunlight meandered across the ceiling, the passage of the minutes counted by the steady beep of the monitors.

 

Eventually, Alana said, “Jack's funeral is in two weeks. I plan to attend. I _will_ attend, and if I have to roll myself all the way out to the cemetery.”

 

Will took a deep, shuddery breath. “I'll be there.” He hadn't been the one who pushed her out of a window, but he could be the one to push her wheelchair. “We can roll out there together.”

 

She smiled at him, tentatively.

 

*

 

A week before Jack's funeral – a month after the night at Hannibal's house – Will got out of bed, observed by a doctor and two nurses. The drains were out. He'd been given solid, bland foods for the first time, and the prospect of a shower and other sights than his room's ceiling were motivation enough to help him ignore the very real pain that still trembled through his midsection.

 

He only managed about ten steps before he felt as though he'd run a marathon, and had to lean on the small table in the corner, light-headed and weak.

 

“That's normal,” the doctor assured him. “Your muscles need to remember how to move, after the long convalescence. I suggest short walks, with plenty of rest between. Make sure you don't wander where nobody can see you, in case you do need help.”

 

Will took a shower, his midsection packed tightly in plastic. Then he stared at his reflection in the bathroom's small mirror for half an eternity, dripping water on the floor mats. His careless five-day-stubble had grown into a full beard, which did nothing to hide how gaunt he looked, how the skin stretched tightly over his cheekbones. He'd lost muscle mass – not enough to look emaciated, just enough to make it feel as though he was looking at a stranger.

 

It took him forty minutes to trim down the facial growth to something less wild. He was so tired by the end of it that he almost fell asleep at the sink, and retired to bed for the rest of the day.

 

The following morning, Will shuffled up and down the corridor outside his room for twenty minutes. The scar on his abdomen pulled and ached with every step. It was an ugly thing, thick and red. The doctors had told him that with time, it would fade a little, and if it bothered him too much, cosmetic surgery was an option.

 

Will wasn't going to do a damn thing about it. The scar was the only visible evidence he had of his encounter with Hannibal Lecter, not counting the ones in his mind; he would wear it – not proudly, but doggedly, as a reminder of...

 

Of what? His own fallible nature? His _failure_? Will sat down on a visitor bench outside his room, ignoring the security guard – a stern-faced, unfriendly-looking brunette who'd trailed after him the entire time – and the other patients and nurses.

 

Jack had warned him about not letting his empathy confuse him.

 

Will hadn't been confused, though, there at the end.

 

He knew exactly what Hannibal was, and it was nothing like what had anchored Garret Jacob Hobbs in Will's subconscious. Beneath Hannibal's genteel, refined exterior, beneath the layers of sadism and manipulation, lurked a scarred creature – scarred, but not meek or apologetic. Proud. Unlike most serial killers, Hannibal wasn't delusional or attempted to explain his acts away, to rationalize them.

 

Surely there was a childhood trauma, probably connected to that long-dead sister, Mischa. Nobody was born a fully fledged cannibal with a penchant for making five-star-meals out of their victims.

 

Will's empathy had resonated neither with the scarred creature nor the traumatized child, but with the _man_ who ate the rude and made their remains into art. He hadn't been seduced by the blood and the _meat_ , although Will could no longer claim 'doing bad things to bad people' didn't feel good.

 

He'd cared for Hannibal, still did. He was possibly in love with him, or at least with the ideal Hannibal represented: that ironclad certainty that there was a place for Hannibal in this world, and his right to claim and defend it. His right to be what he was, without having to explain or justify it.

 

Will could relate to that. To all of it. Having never been the most stable of persons, Will could see how he would yearn for that certainty and the man who represented it. Who wouldn't, when it promised so much freedom from the trappings of convention and the plague of self-doubt?

 

But that wasn't all, was it? He -

 

“Hey. You all right?”

 

Will blinked, resurfacing. The security guard was peering into his eyes, a frown on her face. “Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry.”

 

“You sat there for like ten minutes, without moving.”

 

“I do that, now and then.”

 

He didn't want to explain himself to her. Baltimore PD and the FBI had both promised him he wasn't being treated as a suspect, that the security guards where there for Will's protection, but he knew that wasn't quite true. The manhunt for Hannibal Lecter was national news; he'd been last seen by airport staff, boarding a France-bound plane in the company of a woman who matched Bedelia du Maurier's description. Interpol had gotten involved. Hannibal wasn't going to suddenly pop up in Baltimore, breaking into Will's hospital room to finish what he'd started. If he'd wanted Will dead, he would have made sure Will _was_ dead, that night at his house.

 

The security guards weren't there for Will's protection. With Jack gone and no physical records of their plan, there was very little that would prove Will hadn't been seduced over to the dark side. He had killed Randall Tier and then mutilated the corpse. He'd almost shot Clark Ingram, and who knew what Mason Verger would say, if asked about Will's involvement in his curious 'accident' in the pig pen, now that Hannibal was no longer on American soil?

 

“You should probably go back to bed,” the guard said. “You're looking a little peaky.”

 

*

 

A day before Jack's funeral, Will received a visitor. The man who let himself into Will's room was very tall and lean, with greying brown hair and the habitual stoop of someone trying to minimize the impact of their physical size. That, or he'd been warned about Will's volatile social skills, his odd-man-out mentality.

 

“I'm Carter Jones, FBI,” the man introduced himself, not offering Will his hand. “I'm Jack Crawford's successor.”

 

Will disliked him on sight. _Successor_. As if Jack had simply stepped down, retiring to well-deserved years of good living.

 

Jones had brought a briefcase full of files, and wasted no time spreading them out on Will's bed and the small table in the corner, where Will usually ate his meals. They were case files. A small photo was clipped to every folder, showing men and women across all ethnicities.

 

Will looked from the files to Jones. “What's this?”

 

“Victims of the Chesapeake Ripper. I'm sure you're familiar with some of the cases. We're slowly unravelling Hannibal Lecter's 'career' here in Baltimore.” Jones took the only chair in the room, forcing Will to remain standing, as his bed was currently occupied by the files. “I'm sure we'll dig up more. Lecter was careful in leaving no traces, but now that we know what we're looking for, we're finally going to nail the bastard.”

 

The urge to laugh right in Jones' face was overwhelming, but Will suppressed it. 'Nail' Hannibal. As if the FBI had ever gotten closer than Hannibal allowed them. As if they'd been suspecting him for years. If circumstance hadn't put Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter in the same room, if Will hadn't somehow managed to worm his way past Hannibal's careful defences, if he hadn't let Hannibal past _his_ , there'd be bodies turning up for a long time to come, in sounders of three.

 

“You misunderstand me. What are these files doing in my room?”

 

Jones crossed one leg over the other, affecting a surprised expression. “Surely you have some interest in contributing to the capture of the man who nearly killed you.”

 

Will's gut reaction shot right past the filters between his brain and his mouth. “No.”

 

Jones' eyebrows wandered up toward his hairline. “No? Too bad. We were going to offer you a chance to redeem yourself.”

 

Will wasn't in the mood to play the talking game. “Cut to the chase.”

 

Jones held up a finger for each point he mentioned. “Mr. Graham, you're under suspicion of murdering Randall Tier. Clark Ingram has spread a pretty interesting tale, as well. And let's not forget that you mutilated Tier's corpse and mounted him on a pedestal at the Museum of Natural History. Then there's the fact that you acted as an accessory to entrapment, regardless of whether Lecter's guilty or not. All that combined is enough to put you behind bars for the rest of your life.”

 

Will shrugged. He wasn't hearing anything new. He'd known Jack and he would be skirting dangerously close to the shadier side of the law, and although neither of them had anticipated Will would have to kill someone in self-defence, they'd both known it came with the job description. Short of catching Hannibal in the act, though, which they'd both known was never going to happen under normal circumstances, they hadn't had many options. And Will had so _wanted_ to be the one to catch Hannibal, then, when he'd been fresh out of the Baltimore State Hospital, aching for revenge.

 

Funny how things had changed.

 

“The only thing that's kept you out of prison so far,” Jones levelled a pointed look at him, then flapped a hand at the quite cosy hospital room, “is the fact that you're the guy who identified Lecter as the Chesapeake Ripper in the first place. And, of course, that weird thing you do. You're _valuable_. We're willing to offer you a deal.”

 

Will shoved a few files into an untidy heap and sat down on the edge of his bed. “Let me guess. You want my full cooperation.”

 

Jones nodded. “The Inspector General has already agreed to drop all charges, if you help us track down and capture Lecter. Considering Randall Tier's personal body count and the state of his victims when he was done with them, you were acting under, shall we say, _extreme_ duress. That can go a long way to excuse some behaviours.”

 

Kade Prurnell would never have backed down like that. Someone higher up the chain of command than her had put their foot down and was holding a protective hand over Will, or the FBI was really _that_ desperate to catch Hannibal and had pulled some strings. Considering the Chesapeake Ripper's body count and Hannibal's personal involvement with the BAU as a consultant, as well as the fact that Jack Crawford, head of the BAU, had died at Hannibal's house, it was likely the second option.

 

Someone wanted Hannibal caught, _fast_.

 

Will knew he didn't have much of a choice. He'd sailed out of the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane thanks to Matthew Brown and the Chesapeake Ripper, neither of whom was going to step up now. Will could think of a million things he'd rather do than immerse himself in Hannibal once more – and in the same breath, immerse himself in his own twisted feelings – but he didn't want to go to prison again.

 

“I have two conditions.” Will stared at a spot of wall directly above Jones' head. “I want Jack's name cleared. He died trying to stop Hannibal. He doesn't deserve to be dragged through the mud. And I want Abi – Miss Hobbs' name to be kept out of the press.” He recalled the newscast he'd watched earlier and amended, “As much as is possible, at this point.”

 

“Done.” Jones picked up his briefcase and rose, with an air of self-congratulatory smugness oozing from his every pore. “Welcome back aboard, Mr. Graham.”

 

_Rude_ , Will thought.

 

*

 

Jack's funeral was a quiet affair. His wife Bella wasn't there. She'd finally succumbed to her body's rapidly progressing deterioration and was confined to a bed at John Hopkins. There were a couple of guys from the BAU, Zeller and Price among them, the director of the FBI, and enough police to curtain the area to keep the press from making a mess of everything.

 

The official story was that Jack had followed Lecter's invitation to dinner, only to be attacked and killed by his host. Abigail and Alana hadn't been mentioned at all. Will's involvement had been kept deliberately vague in regards to the deadly cat-and-mouse game he'd been playing with Hannibal. The press were currently praising him as the 'uniquely gifted FBI agent who had sniffed out Hannibal the Cannibal'.

 

If only they knew.

 

Will kept craning his head during the service, anticipating a certain red-haired journalist among the crowd loitering on the cemetery's gravel paths, behind the rows of police officers. He'd given Freddie Lounds _carte blanche_ to write about him and Hannibal and he couldn't imagine she'd hold back. And if not her, then someone else. Something _always_ leaked through the cracks.

 

Freddie wasn't there.

 

After the casket had been lowered into the ground and the funeral guests had spoken their respective pieces, Will and Alana slowly made their way to the car waiting for them. It was straight back to the hospital for both of them. The doctors had already fussed about allowing them to attend the funeral in the first place, but Alana had been adamant. Now she looked as tired as Will felt.

 

Carter Jones was waiting for them at the car. He greeted Alana with a curt nod, then held out a file to Will. “They fished a body out of the Seine this morning, in Paris. We're still waiting for the French authorities to send us the details, but here's the preliminary report.”

 

“ _Will_ ,” Alana glared at him, reproachfully. “You can't -” She took a noisy breath, fingers clenched white around the armrests of her wheelchair, and averted her gaze. “God.”

 

The file contained a single sheet of paper, with a photo clipped to it. The report was in French. The photo showed the water-logged, naked corpse of a woman. Will had only met Bedelia du Maurier twice, but he recognized her features in the corpse's bloated face. Hannibal had been kind to her; she hadn't been turned into art, hadn't been put on shameful, public display or carved open. She hadn't become someone's _meal_.

 

Skimming over the written report, Will managed to translate enough to get the gist of it: the assumed cause of death was blunt force trauma to the back of the head. Unless the full autopsy turned up anything else, judging by the location of the deadly blow, it was likely Bedelia hadn't seen her death coming.

 

Distantly aware that Alana had started a low-voiced, angry discussion with Carter Jones, Will tried to sink into the scene, to put himself in Hannibal's shoes when he killed Bedelia, tried to _be_ Hannibal, but the connection wasn't coming. The pendulum didn't swing. It was always more difficult if a picture was all he had to work with, instead of a fresh crime scene. Still, he should have got _something_.

 

All he got was an irrational flare of jealousy messing with his concentration. Irritated, Will tried to staunch the flood of hostility toward a woman whose corpse he was looking at, until he couldn't. Jaw clenched, he gave in, allowed himself to sink into that.

 

He'd _had_ Hannibal, there at the end, Will was certain of it. He didn't know what had given the plan's existence away, but he'd had him, hook, line and sinker. He'd seduced Hannibal into believing Will was his friend. His memories of that night were a red-tinged miasma of agony, yet he remembered Hannibal's voice, full of barely concealed hurt.

 

_I let you know me. See me. I gave you a rare gift, but you didn't want it_.

 

Hannibal had gutted Will, severing the bonds that tethered them together, an act of retaliation. He'd killed Abigail, who had no longer served any purpose other than that of a tool to hurt Will with, when Will rejected the possibility – the _reality_ of the teacup coming back together: Hannibal's sister's unconditional love remade, reshaped in Will.

 

And then Hannibal had walked away, literally, as if Will had no more meaning to him.

 

Had walked away all the way to France, with Bedelia du Maurier. As if it was nothing. As if Will was nobody – just another victim of the Chesapeake Ripper, one unworthy even of being turned into art. Of being consumed.

 

“Will? Will!”

 

Alana's concerned shout snapped Will out of his trance. She'd reached up to grasp his wrist, was pulling on it. Carter Jones was giving him a stare that wasn't so much dubious as it was fascinated – like a zoo visitor watching an animal perform a neat trick. Will had gripped the file folder so hard the edges were digging into his palms, crunching up the report.

 

“Anything?” Jones asked eagerly, ignoring the dirty look Alana shot him.

 

Will shook his head, as much to dispel the lingering memories as to answer the question. “I need the full autopsy report. And if you don't mind, I'd like to return to the hospital now.”

 

He took sadistic pleasure in watching Jones' face fall. The man _wanted_ Hannibal caught with a fervour that bordered on avarice, but for all the wrong reasons. Jones was a ladder-climber, an opportunist. Will could read him as easily as this morning's newspaper. He wanted Hannibal's capture on his list of achievements, not out of a sense of obligation toward justice or Hannibal's victims, but to climb yet a little higher on that ladder, perhaps all the way into the FBI director's seat one day.

 

Jones didn't deserve Hannibal.

 

“I'll get that to you as soon as we have it.” Jones tipped an invisible hat at Alana and headed toward the exit of the parking lot, where a few reporters were still lingering.

 

Alana was staring at him, her expression a mix of disbelief, worry and anger. “I can't even begin to formulate how bad an idea I think this is. Will, you're not even out of the hospital yet. You haven't had a chance to process everything that happened. Haring after Hannibal now is the absolute _worst_ thing you could do. I can't believe they asked you to do this!”

 

“I'm not haring after him,” Will protested, the words tasting stale even as he said them, feeble. He'd been haring after Hannibal for so long now, he couldn't just stop. Not even when the man himself probably considered Will dead meat. Alana's questioning look prompted him to add, “They gave me a choice between going to prison, or helping them. I chose helping them.”

 

“That wasn't much of a choice, was it?”

 

“No. But you can't deny I'm the best chance they have at catching him.”

 

A muscle jumped in Alana's cheek. She looked away, across the peaceful, early-morning cemetery with its acres of evergreen lawn and the hundreds of headstones and carved crosses, man-made reminders of the fragility of life. It had rained during the night, and a fine mist hung between the trees.

 

“Promise me you won't get too close this time.”

 

“Promised.”

 

She glanced at him. “Liar.”

 

*

 

Later that day, in the evening, an FBI courier brought a copy of the translated, full autopsy report. There were more detailed pictures of Bedelia's corpse as well, from different angles than just the upper body shot Will had already seen.

 

Instead of jealousy, Will felt vaguely sorry for the woman now – whatever goal she'd had in mind when she accompanied Hannibal to Europe, clearly she hadn't achieved it.

 

He couldn't tell if it had been professional curiosity, a chance to study a rare beast in its natural habitat, so to speak, that prompted Bedelia to risk not only her career but also her freedom. Will knew she'd been Hannibal's therapist, but had she been more? They would have made a lovely pair – both of them brilliant and ruthless. They would have taken Baltimore's upper class society by storm.

 

Had Hannibal been grooming her, the same way he'd groomed Will to follow his urges, the way he had groomed Abigail to be Will's Mischa? Was Bedelia meant to be the reincarnated Mischa, now that Will hadn't panned out?

 

Will did believe Bedelia's story about having been persuaded into killing the patient who had attacked her. He knew all too well what having Hannibal Lecter in your head could do to you.

 

Still, she'd displayed a capacity for cold-blooded calculation and deception. She hadn't come forward with the entire truth until the US attorney granted her immunity from prosecution, despite the lives she'd _had_ to have known were at stake. She'd visited Will during his incarceration at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, told him she believed him, and yet hadn't lifted a finger to help prove Will's innocence.

 

Even what she _had_ told them hadn't prepared Will for the eventual events – Hannibal had been lost that night, but certainly not in self-congratulation at his cleverness.

 

“Why kill you?” Will murmured, stretching out on the bed.

 

He briefly toyed with the idea that this had all been a set up from the start. Hannibal clearly was capable of long-term planning. Jack had been hunting the Chesapeake Ripper for years. Will could easily see how Hannibal could have planned to worm his way into Jack's side via everyone's favourite pet empath: wind Will Graham up and watch him go. Watch him drag Jack Crawford down into the rabbit's hole along the way.

 

He dismissed the idea almost immediately.

 

In retrospect, Will was certain Hannibal had meant for them both to get away unscathed, to recreate his happiness, even if that meant forcing fate's hand. Jack's death would have been...a _bonus_ , a thumbing of the nose at the mighty FBI: _S_ _ee? I can get you. Any of you._

 

Why kill Bedelia?

 

Tourists had found her body on the banks of the Seine outside Paris. The autopsy report estimated the time of death at roughly two weeks ago – always hard to tell, with water-buried corpses. She'd had no other major wounds than a crushed-in skull, no organs missing, no trophies taken, no casual mutilations. Just the usual wear-and-tear of a body in a river.

 

Will closed his eyes.

 

_They are walking along the river. It is night. Paris is always at her most beautiful during the night, the Eiffel Tower a shining beacon rising over the city, and there is the Pyramid of the Louvre, and above it all a melody, an echo of times past..._

 

_Interpol and every European police force have been alerted to the cannibal on the run, so Bedelia and Hannibal must stick to anonymity for now, until the waves have calmed, until the all-seeing eye of the press is turned elsewhere: another war, another political scandal. The world forgets. It always does._

 

_Bedelia, stunning in her Armani dress, a shawl elegantly draped over her shoulders to protect against the chill. Click-click-click of her high heels on the pavement. Her hand resting lightly in the crook of Hannibal's arm, not proprietary, but careful, like the hand of the lion-tamer outstretched to pet the great, big cat..._

 

_Hannibal genteel as always, yet preoccupied. Discontent. Smarting over betrayal, aching for another's presence -_

 

_A careful question, in Bedelia's soft, dulcet tones. Hannibal answers almost carelessly, close to distress and furious about it. Gently, Bedelia probes, to gauge the state of Hannibal's mind._

 

_They turn from the river toward the city. Hannibal picks a small flowerpot from a low windowsill, with prestidigitation._

 

_Bedelia does not notice. The streets are narrow here, the street lights damp and distant, and it is late enough for them to be unobserved by locals and tourists alike. Still, she must watch her step, unless she stumbles on the uneven side walk._

 

_The flowerpot is heavy, entirely carved from stone. A good weight in Hannibal's hand. He aims it at the back of Bedelia's head and he feels -_

 

\- nothing. Will felt nothing. He opened his eyes. The images were there, detailed as always, but the emotional component wasn't. Hannibal hadn't felt a thing. At least, nothing so tender as he had demonstrated toward Will, all the way until the curved blade sank into Will's belly.

 

This was Hannibal at his basest. Stripped of all emotions because he'd locked them away tightly. Prior to his attempt to lure him, Will wouldn't have been able to tell the difference – Hannibal presented the world with carefully tailored expressions and behaviour – but now it was like being back in that field in Minnesota, where Will had been handed a negative so he could see the positive.

 

Bedelia had been a means to an end. A couple aroused less suspicion at the airport if the authorities were looking for a man travelling alone. The authorities were looking for a white man in his late forties who had killed dozens of people in America and god only knew where else, not a doting, considerate husband. Oh, Hannibal had known about Bedelia's interest, that once-in-a-lifetime chance to study a cannibalistic serial killer from up close and _live to tell about it_ –

 

_Hannibal as genteel as always, yet preoccupied. Discontent._

 

He'd killed her because she wasn't Will. Perhaps he'd wanted her to be.

 

_He misses me,_ Will thought. _He wanted what could have been, so much. He was lonely, looking for someone to finally see him for who he is. To accept him as he is. He thought he'd found that someone in me._

 

_And how do we feel about that, Mr. Graham?_

 

*

 

 


	2. Interim

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Erm, yeah. The muse got wordy. I've nudged up the total chapter estimate to four. _Maybe_. Also, went back and changed Freddy Lounds to Freddie...I didn't even notice I was writing the Red Dragon version of her name.

**Chapter Two: Interim**

 

 

It wasn't until Will was released from the hospital that he realized just how much he'd lost in terms of personal connections. The pool of people he called friends had always been very small. Some would argue it was non-existent; it had certainly been a lot smaller after Hannibal got a hold of him.

 

Will simply didn't _do_ the people thing – he wasn't a very social person to begin with, and over the years his ability, his job and his penchant for the outdoors had isolated him further. He liked it that way. He had a few distant neighbours he could call on to feed his dogs, if none of his immediate acquaintances were available. The few marginally deeper relationships he'd formed with fellow lecturers at Quantico were strictly work-related, and he'd kept them that way.

 

The same could be said for his relations within the BAU. Zeller and Price were friendly, Beverly had been even more so, but they weren't what Will considered friends. Jack had been his friend, when he hadn't been Will's superior or the cause of Will's headaches. Still, that relationship, too, had more or less hinged on the presence of Hannibal in their lives, and Jack...

 

Jack was gone.

 

There'd been Alana – there still _was_ Alana. Will wasn't going to pretend their relationship hadn't changed and was in dire need of mending, of restructuring. Learning the truth about Hannibal had gone a long way to helping them overcome the mistrust and the frigidity that had dominated the handful of meetings since Will's release from the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane; still, they had issues to work through.

 

That would have to wait. Alana was going to be busy re-learning how to walk, and Will wasn't keen on poking around in emotional wounds that had only begun to heal, when the physical wounds were still so fresh.

 

Alana, too, needed time to process the events, as well as her role in them. Before he left the hospital, he had promised her he would call and visit; they both knew how Will tended to keep promises like that, and Alana had watched him go with a resigned smile and a half-hearted threat to break his door down, if he made himself too scarce.

 

He had every intention of making himself scarce.

 

The truth was, Will didn't _want_ to 'talk about it'. The last thing he needed now was somebody fumbling around in his head, no matter how well-meaning their intentions were. The very idea of sitting down and 'opening up' made his skin crawl. Last time Will had opened up, well.

 

Look how that had ended.

 

He would probably have to deal with going in for another psychological evaluation, unless Carter Jones intended to use him only as an unofficial consultant for the Lecter case – neither Will's FBI badge nor his gun had yet been returned to him – and had already resolved himself to lying through his teeth. He thought he was rather good at lying, by now.

 

That was something to deal with later.

 

Will returned to Wolf Trap and a deserted house.

 

After weeks in the hospital, the silence was as deafening as it was welcome. Someone from the BAU, who remembered Will's love of strays, had called in animal services to take care of the dogs during his stay at the hospital. He found a note taped to the inside of his front door, with a number for a local boarding kennel.

 

Will took a slow tour of his home. Mould was growing in the dog bowls. Weeks-old laundry lay untidily in the corners of the bathroom, on the foot end of his bed. His fridge was in a state he wouldn't want to wish upon anyone. Before the end, Will had spent so much time at Hannibal's house, his own home had fallen into a state of near neglect.

 

There was cleaning and shopping to be done, before he could even think about reuniting with his ragtag pack of companions.

 

His mail was an untidy stack of headaches waiting to happen. He'd never got much mail – a subscription to a local newspaper and a national fly fishing magazine, a few work-related monthly publications – but now he had a mountain of it. Will eyed it for thirty seconds, then gathered up the lot and dumped it in the next convenient box.

 

The mail could wait. His dogs were more important. He needed them, now more than ever. Will liked the silence, the solitude of living on his own, far away from the city, yet he'd never felt so alone before. He'd never noticed how quickly he had become used to that: a person sitting across from him at the dinner table, a glass of wine or other spirits shared in company, _conversation_.

 

Hannibal must have felt the same.

 

*

 

Will had four days of relative peace before it all went to hell.

 

The newspapers and TV reports, as well as most of the internet coverage, had mainly concentrated on Hannibal so far, as well as some of his former, upper class patients. Carter Jones had kept his end of the bargain; Will didn't know how the new head of the BAU had managed it, but mentions of the other involved parties had been scarce, mere footnotes.

 

Then Freddie Lounds posted a picture of Will in his hospital bed on Tattlecrime.com, complete with the tubes hanging out of him and the IV lines going every which way, and suddenly every reporter and journalist who'd previously written or moderated anything about the Lecter case shifted focus to 'Will Graham, the man who _almost_ caught the cannibal'.

 

Luckily, Will had already retrieved his dogs from the kennel. Luckily, he'd already gone shopping. He stood on his porch that morning, watching the dogs romp around in the yard. He was still unaware of the existence of the article that featured him, and watched the landslide of cars rolling toward his house with a growing sense of disbelief.

 

He called the dogs in. He locked every door. He drew the curtains and lowered the blinds.

 

Hannibal would have called it hiding. Will called it battening down the hatches.

 

Two days after the picture of Will went viral, Freddie outdid herself. She posted an article about Alana Bloom and her ill-fated liaison with Hannibal Lecter. The photo accompanying the article was a grainy shot of Alana getting out of her car, laden with grocery bags – nowhere near Chandler Square in Baltimore, where Hannibal's house was, but it made no difference: the damage was done.

 

Will tried to call Alana on her cellphone that morning, after he'd stared in shock at a sensationalist article about her in his local newspaper, the Fairfax Connection. He got her mailbox, left an awkward, “I'm sorry,” and hung up again.

 

His own phone had been ringing non-stop, until he changed the ringtone volume to mute. A flashing screen was easy to ignore. He couldn't take a single step outside his own house without being accosted by the flash of cameras and shouted questions.

 

Will was furious.

 

Freddie picked up the phone immediately, when he called her. “So nice to hear from you, Mr. Graham,” she greeted him. Her tone of voice was playful, coquettish. “Did you like my articles?”

 

“You just had to drag Alana into this, didn't you?”

 

“Oh, but the people have a right to know, don't you think? Dr. Bloom is a psychology professor and an FBI consultant. I think it's vital to demonstrate just how far Hannibal Lecter's reach extended, that he fooled his patients as well as his peers. And of course, love sells. Especially _that_ kind of love.”

 

Will pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. A headache was already pounding behind his temples. He wasn't going to presume to be able to speak for Alana's feelings on the matter, but he was fairly certain that what Hannibal had felt for her hadn't exactly been 'love' in the traditional sense. If Will hadn't arrived in time to alert the Emergency Response Team, Hannibal would have simply let her bleed out, outside on his porch in the freezing rain.

 

“He nearly killed her.” Freddie didn't have to know it had been Abigail, not Hannibal, who pushed Alana out of the window. That was something not even the FBI knew, at this point, unless Alana had meanwhile changed her mind. “She went there to stop him. She risked her life. Like Jack did. Like I,” he cut himself off and sighed.

 

He had told Freddie she could write about him, about Hannibal, but asked her to leave Abigail out. When he did, he hadn't known how things would proceed, his uncertainty reflected in Freddie's pensive comment that Will didn't really know if he was going to survive Hannibal. He hadn't even thought about having to exclude Alana from that list, and hadn't mentioned her to Carter Jones, either.

 

His mistake, really.

 

There was going to be no arguing about this, with Freddie. She was a bloodhound. She'd point out the loophole in their little agreement, which hadn't really been an agreement, the second Will brought it up. He knew enough about Freddie by now to know that the ethics of professional journalism didn't extend to her line of work. It was how she'd gotten to where she was today.

 

Freddie Lounds wasn't just rude. She was an inconsiderate, opportunistic brat, who left nothing but ruins in her wake. Will found himself wishing he _had_ killed Freddie, if only to spare Alana the guaranteed hassle her relationship with Hannibal made public would bring.

 

It took him a long moment to let go of the rather appealing idea of stringing Freddie up by her own hair, and he switched topics before he went further down that road. It was so _tempting_. “That picture of me, in the hospital bed.”

 

“I didn't take that,” Freddie said quickly.

 

Will scoffed. “Don't lie to me.”

 

“I'm not. Believe me, I _tried_ to sneak into your room, but those damn security guards were practically sitting on your door. I got it in an email. Some throwaway address that has since then been deactivated.” Smugly, she pointed out, “I didn't even have to pay for it. Someone really wanted me to have that.”

 

Will realized belatedly that anyone could have taken that picture. Nurses. Doctors. Even the security guards. He'd been in a coma for two weeks, at the mercy of anyone who had access to his room. That was how most 'leaked' information reached the general public these days: first responders snapping commemorative pictures with their cellphones, cops recording videos of crime scenes, to brag about at home or to sell for a quick buck.

 

“Now,” Freddie went on, suddenly all business, “about that book I'm going to write. Seeing that you did survive Hannibal Lecter, I believe you still owe me some interviews, and -”

 

He hung up.

 

*

 

Alana didn't return Will's call.

 

*

 

Reporters in their newscast vans staked out Will's house for a few days until they gave it up as a lost cause. When he did have to go out, he walked straight past the microphones and recorders thrust in his face.

 

One morning, Freddie was there, leaned against her Jeep’s door in the back of the long row of vans, smiling. Will stared at her as he got into his car, and maybe he imagined it, but it looked like her smile was fading, the longer he looked her in the eyes.

 

*

 

Hannibal sent him a postcard.

 

It came in an unmarked bubble-wrap envelope, and Will _almost_ threw it out before he noticed the distinct handwriting on the back of it. Not so much as an actual address, no: a simple 'H', so small as to be easily missed amid the stamps and the poor state the envelope was in.

 

Will didn't bother taking the envelope or the postcard in to Quantico to have them analysed. Hannibal wasn't going to be so careless to leave anything traceable behind.

 

He conducted his own, admittedly rather limited, forensic investigation. The envelope had gone through so many international re-mailers that tracking it would have been a waste of resources. Even if they found out where it had originally been posted, by the time they got there, Hannibal would be long gone.

 

Will ripped open the seal, fully aware that he was contaminating the first actual piece of evidence attesting to Hannibal's existence since his disappearance.

 

The postcard was generic, tourist trash, showing the _Cappella Palatina_ , the Palatine Chapel in Palermo, from an unflattering angle. A tiny inscription on the card's back revealed it had been printed by a small French company supplying newspaper stores around Paris. It was the kind of card one could buy anywhere, with no distinctiveness to it other than the picture on its front.

 

There were only two words in the card's writing space: _Even Steven._

 

No signature.

 

Will's first reaction was to burn the card and the envelope. As beleaguered as he was by the public interest in his person, he'd spent a wonderful few days not thinking about Hannibal at all, at least not when he was awake. His dreams were a different matter – he'd lost track of how many times he'd died by now, bleeding out on the kitchen floor of Hannibal's house, Abigail next to him.

 

He died in agony one night; the next, he died in the sweet rapture of the martyr; he died quietly and gently; he died angry, furious, desperate; only Hannibal never changed, watching him, all dark, wet eyes and his face carved from stone.

 

There wasn't a single variation where Will _didn't_ die. In his waking hours, he didn't fantasize about different outcomes. The events of that night had been preordained; there had literally been no other way out for Will than to break against his divided loyalties and smear up against his warring, confused urges.

 

And now a postcard, as if even half a world away, Hannibal still knew exactly how to wind Will up.

 

“You bastard,” Will said out loud, stuck somewhere between hysterical amusement and the urge to crawl into the next corner. The dogs were snoozing in their customary spots in front of the fireplace, but at the sound of his voice, they roused themselves a little. Winston lifted his head, eyeing Will curiously and yawning, pink tongue lolling. “You just had to get the last word in, didn't you?”

 

Somewhere beneath the amusement and the anguish, Will was _deliriously_ happy. Hannibal had walked out of his life and into a new one, but maybe, Will thought, just maybe, Will wasn't the only one incapable of letting go.

 

It was a nice feeling, knowing he was right.

 

_Do you believe you could change me, the way I've changed you?_

 

He tucked the postcard back into the envelope. _I already did_.

 

*

 

A month after his release from the hospital, Will drove to the Academy at Quantico to clear out his desk and locker. He wasn't going to go back there. He'd all but stopped teaching classes anyway, once Jack pushed for his reinstatement as an official FBI agent, and certainly after his incarceration. He had no interest to stand in overflowing lecture halls now, filled to the brim with people who wouldn't be attending because they wanted to learn, but because they wanted to gape at him.

 

Turning up unannounced in the middle of the day caused a bit of a scene in the hallways, students and teachers alike turning to stare after him, whispering when they saw him approach. Cellphone cameras flashed. Several of the older students even gave Will the thumbs-up, when he passed them.

 

They acted as though Will had caught Hannibal, when in reality, he had let Hannibal _kill_ him. He couldn't even be bothered to dredge up the energy to correct their tasteless behaviour.

 

On his way back home, Alana called him. Will pulled over to the side of the road. “Hi.”

 

“Hi. I'm sorry I didn't call back earlier, Will.”

 

“That's all right.” He though about the newspaper articles, the TV shows. “How, um, how are you?”

 

“Better. I heard you quit your job at the Academy.”

 

There was no point in asking how she knew. Alana was well-liked at Quantico; she had connections Will had never cared to make. Given their history, someone must have called her the moment Will's resignation letter landed on his supervisor's desk. “I did.”

 

He expected her to try and talk him out of it – argue, maybe, that quitting his job could be seen as a sign of weakness, of giving in, of letting the world know that Hannibal Lecter had broken Will Graham to the point where he couldn't even pursue his job. Instead, Alana said, “Good. That's good. How are you?”

 

“I'm...fine. I'm fine. Busy processing.” A minute of uncomfortable silence passed. Will finally remembered his manners. “How's the physical therapy going?”

 

“It goes. I'm still in the wheelchair, but there is progress. That's the reason I called, actually.” Somewhere in the background, a dog was barking. Apple Sauce, most likely. “My therapist thinks a change of scenery would do me good, and I find myself agreeing. I'm going to Florida, to visit my mother.”

 

Will felt a sting of mild panic. “Are you moving away?”

 

“No. My entire life is down here, and I'm not giving that up. Just...I haven't had a moment's peace since Freddie posted that article.” Alana laughed mirthlessly. “I've had to defend myself for _not_ wanting to spill my life story to every major network. Most of the people I've talked to were surprised I didn't want to make money out of my 'fame'.” Will could hear the air quotes and the bitter sarcasm that went along with them. “I can't leave the house without someone snapping a picture of me or following me with a microphone. It's interfering with my therapy, even.”

 

Will thought about the masses that had appeared practically on his doorstep, thanks to Freddie's article. He'd been followed all the way into town once, when he went to buy dog food. It had gotten so bad that the proprietor of the store threatened to not only throw out the reporters, but Will along with them. “I can relate.”

 

“I'd like to think I'm not running away,” Alana admitted, “but I am running away. For a while.”

 

Will didn't want her to. They hadn't talked in a few weeks, but now that he was hearing Alana's voice, he suddenly missed her. She'd always tried to be his friend, until his own actions and Hannibal's meddling had pushed a wedge between them; the idea of Alana moving not just out of town but out of _state_ , even if it was just temporary, left him feeling as though he was about to lose the last, solid connection to normalcy that existed in his life.

 

“Will?”

 

“Sorry, I was...is there anything I can help with? Pack boxes? Drive you to the airport?”

 

“It's all taken care of, thank you. I'm not packing boxes. A few suitcases will do.” There was a moment of hesitation on Alana's part. “I thought about attempting to persuade you to come with me, but I suppose Agent Jones wouldn't like that.”

 

“No, he wouldn't.”

 

Carter Jones wouldn't like that at all, despite the fact that the man had left Will alone for the better part of a month now, and as tempting as the offer was, Will just couldn't do it. There was still the very real threat of having to appear before a judge, after all, if he made it look as though he was trying to evade keeping up his end of the bargain with Jones.

 

“I'll call you as soon as I'm settled in,” Alana promised. In the background, Apple Sauce started barking again. Will thought he could hear a door bell ring, and it occurred to him that while Alana had often visited him in Wolf Trap, he didn't even know where she lived. “I hope that's my friend Susan come to help me with the packing, and not just another reporter. Take care of yourself, will you?”

 

He told her he would, and then sat in his car for twenty minutes, listening to the silence of an ended call crackling through his cellphone's speaker. As far as conversations went, this one ranged among the most awkward he'd ever had.

 

Will knew it was egoistical, but his gut reaction was a sense of abandonment.

 

 _Abandonment requires expectation_.

 

Words spoken by his own mouth, a lifetime ago: a deprecating comment, meant to reflect more on himself than the people around him.

 

 _She's not abandoning you_ , Will thought, irritated with the turn his thoughts were taking. He started his car and pulled back into the lane. _You have no claim to her. You have no claim to anyone. You're no stabler now than you were before Hannibal got into your head, and Alana doesn't owe you anything._

 

*

 

Still, the feeling of abandonment lingered.

 

It was exacerbated by Carter Jones calling him into the BAU a day later. All the evidence of the Lecter case had been moved to its own, special room down the hall from Jack's office.

 

Jack's office was now Jones' office.

 

Will caught a glimpse of Zeller and Price bent over an autopsy table, arguing amicably as always. They were unaware of his presence, as Jones steered him with a hand resting heavily on Will's shoulder, robbing him – or saving him from, depending how you looked at it – of the chance to say hello.

 

Jones opened a narrow door and ushered Will through it. “This is your new office, Agent Graham.”

 

It wasn't an office. It was a windowless box, with pale green carpet and taupe paint on the walls. Boxes were stacked against one wall, nearly all the way to the ceiling. Will recognized Beverly Katz's handwriting on some of them: Chesapeake Ripper evidence, now all part of the great mass of Hannibal the Cannibal paraphernalia.

 

A desk stood in one corner, placed so that Will's back would be to the door if he sat down in the chair in front of it. On the desk stood a single lamp and a telephone. The remaining walls were covered with evidence boards, their corners full of pins waiting to be put to use.

 

“Well,” Jones said, “get to work.”

 

Will stared at him. Get to work on _what_? “What exactly do you expect me to do for you, Agent Jones?”

 

“The same thing you always do.” Jones made an inviting gesture toward the boxes. “Everything we've collected on Hannibal Lecter is in this room, as far as we could make it fit through the door. What more do you need?”

 

“I thought you wanted me to help you catch him.”

 

“I do.” Jones smoothed down the lapels of his suit with a quick, jerky hand, giving Will the distinct impression that he was not happy to be having this discussion. “Lecter's trace goes cold in Paris. We've gotten exactly nowhere with Doctor du Maurier's corpse, so this is all we have to go on. I don't know how you do your thing, and quite frankly, I don't care. Do a voodoo dance, if that helps. Just get me something I can work with.”

 

Hannibal would have served Carter Jones' tongue in a pot roast, perhaps, or cut finely and served with only a hint of herbs and a light wine to bring out the flavour of the meat. The dish would have had some unpronounceable name, and the meat would have melted in Will's mouth while -

 

The door slamming shut in Jones' wake snapped Will back into the present. He took off his jacket and sat down on the edge of the desk, eyeing the boxes, the empty evidence boards.

 

Jones was delusional, if he thought Will could somehow magically trace Hannibal to the other side of the planet by going through a mountain of old evidence. Will was familiar with most of the Chesapeake Ripper cases already, both old and new – he knew he wasn't going to find anything in those boxes that would lead them to Hannibal's current hiding place.

 

If he was hiding at all. If he wasn't waiting -

 

_Waiting?_

 

Will thought of the postcard, safe in a strongbox along with other documents such as his birth certificate, in his kitchen pantry. Hannibal had mentioned the Palatine Chapel in Palermo while they were burning his patient notes, speaking of the place with fondness and, at the same time, reverence.

 

A mind palace was a concept Will was familiar with, even if what he had wasn't quite the same – he had his stream, his quiet place surrounded by nature, a representation of the peace and calm he so often lacked in his life.

 

Nothing so grand as foyers and halls and possibly dungeons, reeking of old blood and guts and -

 

 _Familiarity_.

 

Will knew very little about Hannibal's European roots. He knew Hannibal had had a sister, that their parents had died while Hannibal was young, that he'd been raised in an orphanage until his uncle adopted him. Hannibal had probably travelled during his youth – no, had more than likely travelled extensively, before he settled down in Baltimore. Every now and then, Hannibal had commented on a meal, narrating how he had eaten it in places where the recipes weren't exotic, but a national heritage handed down.

 

He would do the same in his mind palace. He would integrate what he knew, what he had seen.

 

Was the postcard a hint? A challenge? Something so blatant that a mere look at the picture would reveal Hannibal's current residence of choice?

 

And if yes, why?

 

*

 

Will returned to Wolf Trap late in the evening, having stopped on the way home to pick up more dog food. He was tired, and he wasn't at all looking forward to driving back to Quantico in the morning. The temptation to just drop it all and go home had been nigh-overwhelming already around noon, especially with the postcard floating around in the back of his mind. He had spent the majority of the day enclosed in that claustrophobia-inducing 'office', listlessly opening boxes and looking through files.

 

Will's initial dislike of Carter Jones was on the best way to turning into resentment.

 

Jones apparently expected Will not only to pull Hannibal out of his hat like a magician did a rabbit, but also to do all the work: just setting up the time line of the Ripper kills and the corresponding victims on the evidence boards, the bare foundation of most criminal investigations, had taken up the better part of four hours, with no one to help him sort.

 

Jack would never have done that. Jack would have wanted to be in the thick of it, would have dug through the files himself and lined up the photos of corpses on the board. Jack would have _irritated_ Will – but in his own way, spurned him on as well, challenging him to overcome self-set boundaries and not above pushing him straight through them, if Will resisted.

 

Much like Hannibal had, really.

 

Jones was just irritating.

 

Zeller and Price had dropped in for a bit of a chat, the conversation stilted and mostly revolving around Will's injuries and how awful it was that all this time, they'd been working with the devil. Had even listened to Lecter giving them advice on cases! And how blind they all had been, to not see the monster among them, when it was their job to catch Hannibal and the likes of him.

 

Will had nearly broken off the conversation at this point. It irked him to hear Hannibal referred to as a monster, although Will himself knew best just _what_ the nightmare creature was that had been hounding him for so long.

 

It irked him, because everyone only focused on the _what_ , not on the _why_. People looked at Hannibal now and saw the cannibal, and only the cannibal.

 

Hannibal was more than that. And no matter how much Will wished he could unsee what he'd seen _beneath_ the monster, he couldn't.

 

*

 

He took the postcard out of the strongbox and fell asleep turning it between his hands, stretched out atop the covers of his bed.

 

He didn't dream of dying in Hannibal's kitchen. Instead, Will stood in the quiet of the stream, Abigail next to him. He didn't have to turn around to know there was something on the bank of the river, watching them both, craving to be near them with a covetousness Will could feel like fire on his skin.

 

All in good time. For now, there was a surrogate daughter, the _idea_ of a daughter, Will had to take care of, for his own peace of mind. Abigail Hobbs was dead and buried in a cemetery in Minnesota, next to her mother's grave. He'd failed her in so many ways. There was so much Will would have liked to show her, to teach her.

 

Abigail grinned at him, eager and forgiving. “You can do that now.”

 

“This isn't real.”

 

“No,” she agreed, “but we can pretend it is. For a little while. I think it would be nice. Don't you?”

 

He taught Abigail how to throw the line, how to move with the water and not against it. She was a quick study, an avid pupil. When she was suitably distracted, engaged in her new hobby, Will carefully waded out of the stream and stood on the bank, hands in his pockets. The wendigo shifted and changed next to him, a rapid switch of impressions in the fading light.

 

“Stop doing that,” Will said. “I know what you are, now.”

 

The black-skinned, grotesque form disappeared, leaving a far more familiar sight in place – even if Hannibal looked completely _out_ of place, in his tailored-to-fit suit and fine leather shoes, tie and pocket square matching. There were grass stains on the hems of Hannibal's trouser legs, and a stray leaf clung to the back of his coat. He looked _normal_.

 

Will wasn't fooled. Hannibal could pull on appearances like other people put on shirts. “Don't pretend.”

 

The leaf disappeared. So did the grass stains. Hannibal clasped his hands in the small of his back, looking as pristinely put together as always. “I wanted this. For you. For me.”

 

“You wanted to recreate your happiness, the moment before the teacup shattered. You cannot build a family on a foundation of fear. You, of all people, with all your insight into the psyche, should know that. Abigail was scared of you.”

 

Hannibal appeared to mull this over. “And you? Were you scared of me?”

 

“No. I wasn't. I'm not.” He had been scared for Alana, numb with shock over Abigail's sudden appearance and then devastated, but he hadn't been scared of Hannibal. Not even when Hannibal had gutted him. “What happens now?”

 

“I don't know.”

 

“What do you _want_ to happen?”

 

Hannibal looked away. “I don't know.”

 

*

 

In the morning, Will discovered the envelope the postcard had come in had slipped from the bed during the night, and been subsequently nibbled on by more than one dog. As well as sniffed at, slobbered on, and mauled. It was just as well; he didn't need the envelope. He didn't need the postcard either, and burned it in the kitchen sink, watching the laminated picture of the Palatine Chapel sizzle and curl before it caught fire and blackened.

 

He called Carter Jones. It was early. Will didn't know if Jones had a family, if there were kids still living at home, a wife or a husband who'd be disgruntled at the small invasion of privacy.

 

He didn't care. “I need to go to France,” Will said as soon as he heard the call being picked up. “I need to be where he was.”

 

“Jesus, who's this? Graham?” Jones' voice sounded thick with sleep. “It's half past six in the morning. You better have one hell of a good reason to get me out of bed this early.”

 

 _You psycho_ went unsaid, but Will heard it nevertheless. “I can sit in that cramped, little room at Quantico until I'm blue in the face, or until another body turns up. We were lucky we got Bedelia – Hannibal _wanted_ her to be found. He's not going to do us the same favour again.”

 

The distinct snap of a lighter was followed by the crackle of burning tobacco and a wet smoker's cough. “Christ.”

 

Arbitrarily, Will wondered if a smoker's meat tasted _smokier_ , or just like tar. Hannibal would know. In fact, that opened up a whole other line of questions, didn't it? How did the man, who was by his own admission careful about what he put into his body, determine if the pig in question wasn't carrying an infectious disease? Will was no doctor, but even he knew that several diseases were transmittable by consuming animal meat. There was no reason to assume the same couldn't be said for human meat.

 

And Hannibal had so often served the meat _raw_.

 

He noticed Jones was talking to him. “Sorry, what?”

 

Jones heaved a sigh. “I said, I can't just put you on a plane to Europe. Do you have any idea how many jurisdictional lines we'd be crossing? We don't even know if Lecter's still _in_ France!”

 

“Well, we could sit around and wait until he turns himself in, which is never going to happen.” Carefully, Will laid out the bait. “Or, if you prefer, we can wait until one of the European law agencies gets a hold of him. Your choice.”

 

“I'll make the arrangements,” Jones said before Will had even finished speaking. He took another drag of his cigarette and coughed again. “This had better be worth it, Graham.”

 

“Oh,” Will said, “yes.”

 

 


	3. Departure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is where the Dark Will Graham tag starts to take effect. It's nothing too explicit, but proceed with caution, anyway. This chapter is slightly shorter than the previous two, but I didn't want to make a break right in the middle of the main action, so to speak. 
> 
> A note on police/FBI procedures: I've probably - more than likely - completely mangled any and all correct police procedures, as well as international laws, to fit in this fic. The show does a lot of handwaving of that kind of stuff, though, and like the show I wanted to concentrate more on the emotional side of it than the correct way how stuff is done. If there's anyone reading this who knows how agent transfers etc. are done correctly... please don't cringe too badly.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who's left comments and kudos. :)

**Chapter Three: Departure**

 

 

As much as Will would have liked to leave for France immediately, he couldn't. It wasn't as simple as buying a ticket and boarding the next Europe-bound plane: any American citizen could do that. An FBI agent, however, one semi-officially tasked with hunting down a serial killer, needed to go through several jurisdictional channels, if he was going to have any sway with the local police force at his destination at all. Finding Hannibal was one thing – making an official arrest in a foreign country and then getting the man back on American soil was quite another.

 

Will let Carter Jones sort it out. With a deadline set tentatively for the end of the week, 'maybe next Monday', he was busy enough setting up accommodations for his dogs and arranging to have his mail kept in storage at the Wolf Trap post office until he returned.

 

Finding Hannibal was going to be no small undertaking; Will  _thought_ he knew where to look for him, but he couldn't predict how successful he would be, or when he would return. 

 

If he returned at all.

 

Strange dreams aside, it  _couldn't_ be as simple as flying to France and then making a detour to Palermo. If there was one thing Will was sure of, it was that Hannibal didn't want to get caught. It begged the question why, then, Hannibal had sent Will the postcard, with those taunting two words and the obvious visual reminder of their last fireplace conversation. 

 

If it was a trap, it was a fairly obvious one. If it was meant to lure Will to Europe to then kill him at leisure, well, Will still believed Hannibal would have cut his throat, and not gutted him, if Will's death had been the goal.

 

If it was merely a taunt...Will was good at his job, and Hannibal knew it. Every serial killer that had crossed Will's path had either ended up caught or dead, with the exception of one. What had Hannibal called him, at their second meeting, over breakfast?

 

_The mongoose I want under the house, when the snakes slither by_ . 

 

Even then, barely knowing more of each other than their respective names, Hannibal had recognized Will's potential to be his downfall – and he opened his doors to Will, invited him first into his office, then into his home and later, into the viper's nest: his heart. Perhaps back then Hannibal had already seen Will's  _other_ potential as well. 

 

No. Neither trap nor taunt, but then, what was it?

 

On Friday, Carter Jones called. “You're flying on Monday. I'll send by a courier later today, with the tickets and your contact details for the French police. You're officially going down there to consult with them on the Lecter case, seeing that you're the leading expert on him.”

 

“And unofficially?”

 

At least Jones didn't pretend at ignorance. “I've arranged things. The courier's also going to hand you a card with a phone number on it. The moment you get a lead on Lecter and find out where he's hiding, you call that number, and a team of specialists is going to take care of the rest. They're on stand-by for just that kind of thing.”

 

“The FBI has a team on stand-by for unlawful extradition?”

 

“We have specialists for everything. And Graham: we _don't_ want the French to make that arrest. Hannibal Lecter committed crimes on American soil, and he's going to stand trial before an American judge. Am I making myself clear?”

 

“Crystal.” Will hung up.

 

*

 

Will spent all Saturday spoiling his dogs, an apology in advance for having to leave them alone soon. He took them on a long trek through the woods, consciously letting go of all things Hannibal for a few hours and just enjoying the outdoors. It was slow going – his last scheduled check-up at the hospital had cleared him for field duty 'within moderation' – but the dogs were having so much fun, and infecting Will with their good moods in turn, that he ignored the occasional twinge from his midsection.

 

He returned home in the early evening, the sky just shading from orange to violet, and found Freddie Lounds sitting on his back porch. In an instant, Will's good mood evaporated.

 

Freddie sat on the chair in the corner of the porch, next to the empty cage where Will usually kept new arrivals to his canine family. She'd certainly heard and seen him approach as he wandered across the field with his dogs jumping and running everywhere, but pretended to be reading through something on her cellphone until Will stood on the first step of the porch.

 

“What are you doing here?”

 

She gave him a saccharine smile, sliding her cellphone into her handbag. Undoubtedly, she was recording their conversation. “You're a hard man to get a hold of, Mr. Graham. You've been ignoring my calls, and you haven't checked your email, either. You still owe me an interview or ten, remember? We had a deal.”

 

Will glanced at the back door. He wouldn't put it past Freddie to break into his house, if she thought there was something inside worth taking a picture of. She'd already broken into his shed once, discovering the remains of Randall Tier in his freezer and forcing Will to let her know about the plan to entrap Hannibal. It had actually worked to his advantage then, letting him play it as though he _had_ killed Freddie, letting him lull Hannibal further into the belief that Will had truly embraced his nature.

 

Will could already tell this wasn't going to work out to his advantage. “I owe you nothing.”

 

Freddie raised her eyebrows. “I didn't write about Abigail Hobbs.”

 

“No, you didn't. You wrote about Alana instead. You insinuated she was Hannibal's dimwitted whore, too blind or too stupid to recognize him for what he is.”

 

“My, aren't you protective of Doctor Bloom. I could have done a lot more than just 'insinuate'.” She gave him a cold look. “I can _still_ do a lot more. This case has tripled the number of subscribers to Tattlecrime. That's a lot of people eager for more detail.”

 

Will ground his teeth together. Freddie could paint a picture of Alana as Hannibal's subservient, stupid lover, and enough people would believe it to not only damage Alana's reputation, but also her career. Alana didn't deserve that kind of public smear campaign; no one did.

 

“What do you want, Freddie?”

 

“Everything. You spent a lot of time with Hannibal Lecter, Mr. Graham, and you nearly fooled me into believing that you'd changed sides. I want details. I want the _meat_ ,” she smiled thinly, “and I want exclusive rights to your story. We talked about it already, but I think it's time I got that in writing.”

 

“What, like a contract?”

 

“Exactly.”

 

This wasn't a conversation he wanted to have on his back porch. Will gestured at the door. “Let's go inside.”

 

The dogs sniffed at Freddie when she followed Will into the house, but soon lost interest. Will refilled their water bowls, taking his sweet time about it, watching Freddie out of the corners of his eyes while she looked around curiously at Will's mismatched, well-used furniture and the knick-knacks on his shelves.

 

She was good, he had to give her that. She had the right amount of curiosity and cruelty to make her good at her job. Publishing a book on Hannibal's story, with exclusive interviews with Will Graham, would not only make her rich; it would also elevate her from her status as a tabloid journalist to that of a published author. It would make her famous – Freddie Lounds, the only one to have insight into the mind of the man who spent weeks living in Hannibal Lecter's pocket.

 

Will glanced out the window. Freddie's Jeep was parked at the side of the road, the only car next to his own that he could see. Enough time had passed for the media hounds to understand that Will wasn't going to give them the time of the day, much less an interview, and although now and then a hopeful journalist still found their way to Will's house, they mostly left him alone.

 

They were alone now, Freddie and he.

 

“You're stalling.”

 

Will looked back over his shoulder. Freddie stood at arm's length behind him, smiling.

 

She saw the crescent wrench coming, her eyes comically wide, her smile dropping. Will didn't know how the heavy tool had ended up in his hand. It slammed into the side of Freddie's skull with a loud _thwunk_ , the abrupt motion and noise startling the dogs. Freddie went down like a felled tree.

 

 _For Alana_ , Will thought, _and for everyone you've stepped on. For every lie you've told and every career you ruined._

 

He slipped the crescent wrench behind his belt, kneeling at Freddie's side. After a moment's contemplation, he stood and dug through a drawer for a pair of gloves, making shooing noises when the dogs gravitated toward Freddie. He found her cellphone in her handbag, along with a small recorder, and switched them both off, in case she had GPS tracking enabled. He wasn't surprised when he saw she _had_ been recording their conversation, and deleted the file. He also found Freddie's gun, along with a spare magazine.

 

Freddie whimpered, moving feebly. Blood trickled out from under her curls, along her jaw, dripping onto the floorboards. She blinked up at Will.

 

He could not go back; he could only go forward now. Will would have liked to tell himself it was shock at his action that prevented him from panicking, but that would have been a lie. He felt as though he was doing the world a favour. He was certainly doing himself a favour, and it felt _right_.

 

“You probably heard about Mason Verger's accident in the pig pen,” Will said conversationally, wrapping his hands around Freddie's throat. “Do you want to know what really happened? He tried to kill Hannibal. He would have killed me, too. Hannibal gave him drugs, and Mason fed his own face to my dogs. Right here, in this room.”

 

Will knew that should have been the moment to step back, from everything. He'd already been in too deep by then: almost shooting Clark Ingram, killing Randall Tier and then mutilating the corpse. Every person had a capacity for cruelty, the capability to murder. Will had had good reasons for the first two incidents: Clark Ingram was a serial killer who'd killed sixteen women and tormented Peter Bernardone, and Randall Tier would have killed and mauled Will. Acts of revenge and self-defence.

 

Watching Mason Verger feed his own face to his dogs was neither, and as revolting as the sight had been, all Will felt that moment had been a deep sense of satisfaction, of righteousness. He should have stopped Hannibal, should have pointed out that Mason Verger was far too prominent a man to mess with; at the very least he should have protested when Hannibal _didn't_ kill Mason, leaving a potential witness to both their crimes.

 

He hadn't. He'd stood and watched, and then he helped Hannibal return Mason to Muskrat Farm. And while Will was very aware of Hannibal's manipulation of both the Verger siblings, watching Mason Verger mutilate himself – Mason Verger, who'd been hurting his sister for so long, who tainted everyone he came into contact with – had felt _good_.

 

Just like this did.

 

Freddie fought him. She kicked and scratched, but Will was still wearing his jacket and thick trousers from his outdoor trip, and he was leaning down on her as well as cutting off her air supply. He closed his eyes and listened to her until there was nothing left to listen to, until all he could hear was his own heartbeat, steady and slow.

 

*

 

He had a panic attack fifteen minutes later. The first time Freddie had come to sniff around on Will's property, she'd stopped for gas on the way, and the security camera at the gas station had picked her up. With her red curls and stylish clothes, Freddie was someone – had been someone who turned heads, someone whom people remembered. She might have told somebody she was driving to Wolf Trap; Will didn't think Freddie had many friends, but he had to consider the possibility that someone knew she'd gone to see him.

 

He dragged Freddie's corpse into his bathroom and dumped her in the bathtub, unsure how to proceed. He wasn't Hannibal – he wasn't going to dismember her into bite-sized parts and cook meals from her remains. Will had become curiously detached from the fact that for weeks, he'd sat down to dine at Hannbal's table, knowing the meat he was eating was likely not from an animal. Still, he couldn't bring himself to do that to Freddie.

 

He should turn himself in. Call Carter Jones, or even Wolf Trap PD, tell them he'd murdered a tabloid journalist in his home. It was the good choice, the _sane_ choice.

 

Will was neither good nor sane; he suspected he hadn't been sane for a long time now. He'd taken the last step, and he couldn't even blame Hannibal for pushing him over the edge. Hannibal may have coaxed something dark and shrivelled from the bottom of Will's psyche, but Will had done the nurturing himself.

 

He looked at the corpse. Petite as she was, Freddie looked more like a discarded doll than an actual human being. She may not have put a gun to anyone's brow and pulled the trigger; she hadn't raped or killed anyone. Her weapons had been words, her crime: carelessness about whom she left in her wake.

 

“The world is better off without you,” Will told the corpse. He knew he was in the first stage of denial, rationalizing his deed to himself, but it was calming him down.

 

He couldn't afford to panic, now. He had a flight to catch, on Monday.

 

*

 

Late in the night, he drove Freddie's Jeep back to Baltimore. It was strange to feel her curls brush against his clean-shaven cheeks and jaw. Will had done his best to dry her scalp before he pulled it on like a wig, yet he'd been working under pressure, and he had never scalped anyone before. He drove exactly the speed limit, hoping to God he wasn't going to be pulled over.

 

If there'd been any hope left for him, now there was none. He was wearing a dead woman's jacket, driving a dead woman's car, in an attempt to deceive the police, the FBI. As far as forensic countermeasures went, it was weak, amateurish.

 

It only needed it to work until Monday.

 

Freddie lived in a cheap apartment complex in a less savoury part of Baltimore. Will parked the Jeep as close to the stairs leading up to the apartment door as possible and kept his head down as he walked up, Freddie's long curls falling in his face and obscuring his view. He'd managed to squeeze himself into her jacket – the seams had split here and there – but the skirt and boots had been beyond him.

 

If someone was watching him right now, they'd see the hair. The _wig_.

 

Will ripped that off the second the apartment door shut behind him. His own hair felt wet and greasy. He jammed a hat over it, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. His palm came away streaked with red. Will's stomach heaved – he swallowed, leaned against the door, forced the bile back down.

 

The hair and Freddie's jacket went into the plastic bag he'd brought. He pulled his own jacket on, carefully checked the door to make sure he hadn't left any traces behind. He checked the soles of his shoes to make sure there wasn't any dirt in the worn-down grooves that could be traced back to Wolf Trap, too.

 

Then Will went about making Freddie's apartment look as though someone had ransacked it, while making as little noise as was possible.

 

On a whim, he stuffed Freddie's laptop into the plastic bag.

 

Two hours after he set foot in Freddie's apartment, Will left again, leaving the keys in the inside lock as he pulled the door shut. It was the middle of the night now, and the streets were deserted. He walked for nearly an hour, until he figured he was at a sufficient distance, and hailed a taxi to take him back to Wolf Trap. Fatigue was tugging at him; this was his first, strenuous undertaking since his release from the hospital, and Will wasn't done yet.

 

There was still a corpse he had to take care of.

 

*

 

On Sunday, after the people from the boarding kennel picked up his dogs, Will almost turned himself in. He was tired and wired at the same time, feeling as unhinged as he had when the encephalitis was slowly cooking his brain inside his skull, but without the delusional component. Garret Jacob Hobbs had kept him company during a few, fitful hours of sleep; the dead man, Will's first kill, followed him through a dense, dark forest, silent as the proverbial grave.

 

Will had been looking for something. Steadily, he made his way past barren trees, stripped of leaf in the dead of winter, with no other sound for company than his own, laboured breaths. Now and then he thought he saw a mighty shadow walking between Hobbs and him, but the raven stag was dead, had died on the floor of Hannibal's kitchen.

 

What followed Will now was as elusive as smoke. Intangible. A _possibility_ of company, rather than concrete evidence of it. Who knew what form it would take.

 

He woke, miraculously not drenched in sweat or gasping for breath.

 

 _Turn yourself in_ , he told himself, as he stood in his kitchen, blearily watching the coffee maker burble. _Freddie Lounds may have been a waste of good air, but you are not the one who decides. You don't get to choose who lives and who dies, based on some internalized system of guiltiness according to levels of rudeness. That thinking is **wrong** , and you know it._

 

But if Hannibal had decided there was a place for him in this world, then maybe there was a place for Will, too.

 

*

 

He spent most of the day going through Freddie's laptop, between naps. She'd accumulated a lot of information on Hannibal already, though most of it was old: newspaper excerpts from his time as a benefactor of the arts, as an upstanding member of Baltimore's upper crust, pictures of him from tabloid journals when he'd attended social gatherings, copies of Hannibal's publications, copies of articles he'd published in renowned psychiatry journals.

 

Will found a PDF file of the police report from _that_ night at Hannibal's house, even. He wasn't even going to speculate how Freddie had gotten a hold of that. There were pictures, too – Abigail dead on the floor, her skin paper-white under splatters of obscenely red blood. Jack Crawford, slumped sideways in the kitchen pantry, cellphone clutched in one hand.

 

Will deleted the file.

 

The draft of Freddie's book on Hannibal Lecter was more interesting. It was written in the style of Freddie's Tattlecrime article, sensationalistic, with a flair for the dramatic. She described Hannibal as a chameleon, a shape shifter, a monster who put on a people suit and passed unnoticed: a predator adapted to his surroundings out of necessity.

 

Will closed his eyes and allowed himself to imagine what it would have been like, had he given in to Hannibal's offer of disappearing together.

 

Abigail would still be alive. Abigail hadn't been a killer; she'd been a survivor, and she would eventually have adapted to her fathers' proclivities in a fine example of Stockholm Syndrome. They would have travelled somewhere the long arm of American justice didn't reach – some third world country, perhaps, where Hannibal's personal assets would have let them live as kings among beggars.

 

Where no one cared, or looked too closely, when people disappeared. Perhaps a place with a bit of tourism – Hannibal would see a steady influx of tourists as a never-ending smorgasbord of culinary discoveries waiting to happen: _free-range rude from all over the world._

 

They would have grown into a family, the three of them. They would have groomed and pampered Abigail until Garret Jacob Hobbs was nothing more than a distant memory. Hannibal and Will would have hunted together, explored each other's minds, dined together.

 

More, perhaps. There'd always been a hint of _more_ , always. Hannibal had gravitated toward Will like a light-starved sapling turned to the sun. Even during their sessions he always stood or sat close to Will, and later, when Will had begun the slow seduction, Hannibal had dropped all pretences and become downright tactile. Sensing a potential mate.

 

Sex would have been a bonus to their union, not the cause of it. It would have happened as an afterthought.

 

Will opened his eyes, a little disconcerted at the direction his thoughts were taking. He'd never experimented in college, never strayed outside his heterosexual boundaries, hadn't ever wondered. The idea of having sex with a man was abstract. He could look at a man and recognize attractiveness subjectively, when he bothered to invest the energy. With his propensities stable and one-directional since his early teenage years, he'd rarely bothered.

 

Hannibal wasn't attractive in the conventional sense, either.

 

Still, Will discovered he wouldn't have been averse to the idea. Another latent aspect of his personality, maybe, or something solely restricted to a three-piece-suit-wearing cannibal?

 

Something to ponder later, if at all. Hannibal's idea of 'family' would never have worked. At best, they would have been a bastardized version of family, with a forever-scared daughter and one father a bastardized version of himself. How long would it have lasted, until Hannibal saw the flaws of his design? Until he decided to try again, to do _better_?

 

*

 

Will spent Sunday evening taking Freddie's laptop, recorder and cellphone apart, using his boat motor tools until he was left with a pile of fingernail-sized chunks. He took a long walk and scattered them, one handful at a time. Freddie's corpse lay at the bottom of his freezer in the shed, buried under the pieces of Randall Tier the FBI had never bothered to remove – pieces the FBI probably didn't even know about.

 

It was as good a resting place for Freddie Lounds as any other.

 

*

 

Carter Jones drove Will to the airport, on Monday. “Not much baggage,” he commented when he picked Will up, eyeing the single bag Will carried out to the car.

 

Jones wasn't a morning person, Will observed idly. He had bags under his eyes and stale breath, and his suit stank of old cigarette smoke. It was as if the universe had giftwrapped the anti-thesis of Jack Crawford into one neat package of man and plopped it unceremoniously in Will's lap. “I don't expect to stay for long.”

 

“Good. The sooner this is done, the better.”

 

It was a silent drive. It would have been different with Jack; Will and Jack would have been discussing cases or squabbling over evidence. Will _missed_ him – and couldn't wait to be rid of Jack's _successor_. He couldn't even bring himself to rouse an iota of guilt over the fact that when all of this ended – however it ended – Carter Jones' career was likely to be over. The man had bullied Will back into the FBI's service for the sole purpose of catching Hannibal, despite the reasonable charges brought up by Kade Prurnell.

 

Sooner or later, Freddie's corpse would be discovered. Then it would all come crashing down.

 

The only thing Will felt guilt over was that he wouldn't be around to watch that.

 

“Got your ticket?” Jones asked, when they were at the airport. Will patted his pocket. “Got the card?” Will patted his other pocket. “Don't lose that. It's in your own best interest things go exactly as we planned. I want Hannibal in our custody, not someone else's. Fuck this up, and I'll make sure they _will_ put you behind bars.”

 

Will watched him walk away. A pity, really, that Jones wasn't coming along for the trip.

 

Hannibal would have loved to meet him.

 

*

 

The flight from Baltimore to Paris took a little over eight hours. It was evening when Will arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport, departing the plane in a crowd of tourists. Letting the people move him along, he kept his head down. His single bag seemed to arouse some suspicion with the custom officers, who took an age to check over the few items he'd brought: a change of clothes, a pair of shoes, spare glasses.

 

At his flight's arrival lounge, a bored-looking man in an ill-fitting suit held up a white cardboard sign with Will's name on it. His contact for the _Police Nationale_ , probably. Carter Jones had arranged for Will to be picked up at the airport, as well as a hotel room for the duration of his visit. He could only hope Jones hadn't sent them a picture, as well.

 

Will drifted in the crowd, closer and closer to the man with the sign. This, he realized, was another of those moments when he _should_ be doing one thing, and ended up doing something else altogether.

 

The man looked at him for a bare second. Then, his gaze moved on, scanning the crowd around and behind Will.

 

No picture sent, then. It was easy to walk right past the man with the sign, to let the moment when he could have turned around the future and chosen a different path go. He'd been doing a lot of that, lately: letting go. Or not enough.

 

Twenty minutes after dodging his French police contact, Will stood in line at an airport counter. A very helpful airline employee, who smiled at Will's poor attempts at French and then conversed with him in perfect, if slightly accented English, sold him a ticket.

 

He loitered around the duty free shops for a while, bought a horrendously overpriced coffee, and hid in the depths of a newspaper store when a loud gong announced a pleasant, female voice asking _Monsieur_ Graham to please come to the help desk. His flight wasn't leaving for another two hours. The _Police Nationale_ weren't going to search the airport for him, hopefully.

 

An hour before Will's flight was due, his cellphone started humming.

 

Three hours later, Will stepped off yet another plane, into a night fragrant with salt from the ocean. He turned on his cellphone, walking across the airfield in the middle of the other passengers, letting them guide him. The screen showed sixteen missed calls, and five text messages. Four of them were from Carter Jones: variations of _Where the hell are you?_ , with a steadily rising number of questions marks.

 

The fifth was from Brian Zeller. Puzzled – Will had never exchanged numbers with anyone from the BAU's science team – Will read it.

 

 _Where are you? Boss is going crazy. Thinks you had one of your 'episodes' and wandered off into the Seine_.

 

There was a time difference of roughly seven hours between Will's current location and Baltimore, Maryland. With any luck, Zeller had already gone to sleep and wouldn't be checking his messages for a few hours yet. Will texted back, hitting 'send' just as he and the other passengers walked through wide double doors into the airport proper. _I'm fine. Still waiting at Ch.d.Gaulle for my contact._ _Tempted to take next flight back home if they don't show up._

 

Then he switched off his cellphone, opened the back, and took out the battery and the SD-card. They went into separate pockets of his jacket, joining the paper snippets that had once been his contact details for the French police and the business card with a single telephone number printed on it.

 

He and the other passengers were being funnelled toward the customs area. The large sign greeting new arrivals there read Falcone Borsellino Airport, Palermo.

 

*

 

 

TBC


	4. Reunion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And done. 
> 
> Thanks to everyone who stayed to read! I hammered this story out over the course of less than a week, so I know it has some rough edges. On the plus side, my personal headcanon is now firmly anchored in my mind, so Season 3 can throw whatever at me, I'll be able to deal with it.

**Chapter Four: Reunion**

 

Palermo welcomed Will with the charm typical to Old World places drenched in history; at night, the city was quiet, its churches, palaces and other monuments standing in pools of warm light like beacons against the darkness; during the day, the streets were stuffed with tourists and locals going about their business, a farrago of languages and bodies packed tightly between crumbling walls; layered over it all like a blanket, the ocean, an ever-present scent of salt in the air, a distant rush of waves.

 

Will faced his first challenge the night he arrived. He needed accommodations. The airport shuttle bus spat him and other travellers out at the _Stazione Centrale_ , where a fleet of taxis waited for new arrivals to take them to their destined lodgings. Not eager to invite unwanted attention, Will wandered off as though he knew where he was going. He had purchased a tourist guide at Charles de Gaulle in France, taken a fleeting look at the map, and had a rough idea where the Palatine Chapel was located, not that he planned on going there tonight.

 

Checking into one of the large hotels that catered to Palermo's tourists was tempting, yet also dangerous. It was only a matter of time before the FBI figured out Will had gone off-track _willingly_ and began to search for him, if they weren't already. Technology being what it was, he was certain the security cameras at Charles de Gaulle had recorded him, and once they realized he had never left the airport, checking for his name on outgoing flights would be the next step.

 

Hotels required identification in order to rent a room. Will wasn't a criminal mastermind on the run, in possession of forged papers, a new identity; he had his passport identifying him as an American citizen and his FBI badge, the latter of which wasn't going to be of any use to him now. The relative anonymity offered by a place teeming with tourists meant nothing, if he had to leave his real name and copies of his passport at the front desk.

 

A smaller place it was, then, though that meant a smaller pool of guests and possibly a more thorough scrutiny by the owners. Will figured he had a time window of a few days, before the search for him would extend to including the local police, local media.

 

A few days to find Hannibal, then, if Will hadn't completely lost his touch and was wrong about the postcard having been a hint to the absent cannibal's location. A few days, and Will _still_ didn't know what he'd do if he actually found him.

 

What Hannibal would do.

 

*

 

Will found lodgings at a small place on the _Via Danisinni_ , close to the _Piazza Indipendenza_ , and not incidentally within walking distance of the Palazzo Reale, which housed the Palatine Chapel. The proprietor, an old, wrinkled woman who was openly disgruntled at his past-midnight arrival, waved Will's passport away when he offered it for her perusal. She showed him to a room on the second floor, handed him an old-fashioned, heavy key, and shuffled off, muttering under her breath.

 

There wasn't much to look at – a single bed with fluffed pillows and a blanket that looked hand-knitted, a closet, a rickety chair and table ensemble in a corner. No TV, no radio. A second door opened into a tiny bathroom. It was a far cry even from his own, modest home in Wolf Trap, but the view from the window made up for it.

 

The Palazzo Reale rose in the distance, its Renaissance façade lit, a squat, square building in warm ochre tones. Will sat on the edge of the bed, hands folded in his lap, and looked at it until the sun rose over the horizon.

 

*

 

In the morning, Will visited an international bank, withdrawing as much money from his account back home as the machine allowed. It was enough money to hold him over the water for a while, should his intuition prove false, should Hannibal remain elusive.

 

Will didn't think he was wrong. He _would_ find Hannibal. It was the part afterwards that remained blank to him, refusing to settle on a definite outcome, even when he tried to imagine one. Withdrawing that much money was a precaution, for the likely event that his assets would be frozen soon. There was no doubt in Will's mind that Carter Jones would do whatever was possible to get a hold of him.

 

His next stop was the Palazzo Reale.

 

The Palatine Chapel was located on the second floor of the royal seat of the Norman kings of Sicily. It wasn't very large, but what it lacked in breadth and width, it made up for in spades with the sheer wealth and attention to detail lavished upon its domed basilica and three apses.

 

Will wasn't much of an art aficionado – had felt, more than once, out of place and crude amid the carefully chosen pieces at Hannibal's home and office – and much less a practising Christian, but he could appreciate beauty for beauty's sake. The interior of the chapel, teeming with tourists as it was, drew him in with its high vaulted arches, delicately ornamented and painted with pictures of Jesus and the Apostles.

 

This was just the _foyer_ of Hannibal's mind palace. Though the underlying arrogance, that Hannibal would claim a place like this and make it his own, was spinning a thread of amusement through Will's contemplations, he imagined how welcoming it must feel, to step into this sacred silence and be surrounded by art that had survived the centuries.

 

No skull motif, though, on the floor. Will searched the entirety of the chapel, gaze fixed on the ground, for the reminder of mortality, slightly disappointed when he found none. That was something Hannibal had added himself, then, taken from another place.

 

Will's stream paled in comparison, if only in measures of grandeur. The _silence_ was the same, that quiet solitude lacking the debilitating component of loneliness. Will took a seat in one of the pews, tuning out the hushed conversations, the voices of the tourist guides, the click-and-flash of pictures being taken, and relaxed for what felt like the first time in eight weeks.

 

Whether not Hannibal was in Palermo now, he _had_ been here before. Had stood where Will stood, impressed, and taken a piece with him when he left.

 

No one sat down next to Will. He left three hours after he'd arrived.

 

*

 

No one sat down next to him on the following day, or the day after.

 

*

 

On the fourth day, it rained. Before he went to the chapel, Will bought a stack of newspapers, national and international, and sat in a tiny restaurant on the _Piazza Indipendenza_. The dishes on the menu were tailored to the palates of tourists expecting typical Italian food; Will ordered the first thing that sounded good to him and ate without much gusto.

 

He leafed through the newspapers while he ate. No front page articles on Hannibal the Cannibal or Will Graham, FBI agent gone rogue, soon to be suspected murderer on the run. Europe had its own problems, and a fugitive from America hadn't occupied the newspapers for long, it seemed. Even the international version of the _New York Times_ had moved on to a fraud scandal at a big bank, banning the ongoing investigation to a short article on the seventh page.

 

How long, till Hannibal slipped into obscurity? He was on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List, but that wasn't exactly daily required reading for the average person. Will felt a low-key thrill at the prospect of one day, in the not so distant future, finding his own face staring back at him from the FBI's web page. It would be nothing less than he deserved.

 

He wasn't proud of himself. With the kind of psychic driving Hannibal had submitted him to, prior to his incarceration, and the not-so-subtle coaxing afterwards, _anyone_ would have eventually submitted to their darker, baser nature, if only out of sheer self-preservation. Randall Tier, Clark Ingram, even Mason Verger, could be counted as incidents on a road of Hannibal's making, alternately pushing and guiding Will along it.

 

But Freddie Lounds? That had been Will's doing, and his alone. In a way, he felt he owed her gratitude – he felt settled now, in himself, as if killing her had broken him free. He would never be the stone-cold killer Hannibal had glimpsed in him – his very nature prevented him from that status – but the conflict was gone, the loop unravelled. He had liberated himself and chosen a path of his own making.

 

And after stumbling for so long, falling headlong from one serial killer into the next and losing pieces of himself along the way, _that_ , he felt, was something he could be proud of.

 

*

 

After his meal, Will went to the Palatine Chapel and sat in his customary spot, a pew close to the front. The rain came harder now, a steady, heavy downpour keeping tourists and locals alike inside. The chapel was quieter than usual. Will didn't mind, and though he felt curious glances lingering on him as he sat there like an acolyte in prayer, he easily drifted in the silence.

 

Someone sat down next to him. “Hello, Will.”

 

Will glanced sideways. Gone were the three-piece-suit, the matching tie and pocket piece. Hannibal wore a modest cotton jacket and polo shirt in black, over a simple pair of grey jeans. He was clean-shaven, his usually so carefully brushed hair falling rakishly into his face. A pair of stylish glasses were perched on his nose, though Will could see at a glance that the lenses were made from simple glass, a disguise rather than an aid. He looked ordinary, like any other tourist in Palermo, seeking refuge from the rain.

 

“Hello, Hannibal.”

 

“You received my card.”

 

“I did.”

 

“I wasn't sure you would come.”

 

Will smiled. “And here I am.”

 

Hannibal said nothing, didn't return the smile. He was looking Will over in that focused, piercing way of his, while his expression gave nothing away. Will, in turn, noted that being on the run hadn't changed anything major about Hannibal other than his wardrobe. He'd acquired a tan. His hair was perhaps a bit lighter than before; Hannibal didn't have to sit in an office all day any longer, listening to patients pour their hearts out. Will wondered if he missed that.

 

“What gave me away?” Will asked, when he felt he'd given Hannibal enough time to look. “You knew. What was it?”

 

Hannibal's gaze wandered up to Will's face. He leaned in toward him, subtly sniffing the air. “I smelled Freddie Lounds on you, that night when we burned my patient notes.”

 

Ah. So there was the missing piece of the puzzle. Will nodded, satisfied. It hadn't been a mistake on his part, really, rather a case of the wrong company. “She's dead. I killed her.”

 

“You lied about that once already.”

 

“I'm not lying now.”

 

“No.” Hannibal leaned away, looking him over once more. “No, you're not.” He didn't let on if that pleased him, the way he'd been pleased when Will killed Randall Tier, but Will imagined it did.

 

A group of rain-drenched tourists wandered past them, shepherded by a tour guide holding up a garishly red umbrella. Will watched Hannibal watch them, watched the dark eyes move from person to person, a predator's keen gaze. There were tiny, red dots in Hannibal's irises. Will had never noticed them before. When the tourists and their guide were out of earshot, Hannibal turned so he was facing the altar, hands loose in his lap.

 

“Did you come for revenge, Will?”

 

“It crossed my mind.” Just two men in a chapel, having a quiet, private conversation. Amusing to imagine everyone's reactions, if they knew what Will and Hannibal were talking about. Murder in the house of God. But then, God had never shied away from blood. “You'd deserve it. You killed Abigail. And Jack. You nearly killed Alana, or Abigail did, on your behalf.”

 

“And you.”

 

“And me.” Even looking straight ahead at the altar, Will felt Hannibal's gaze on his midsection, where the curved knife had cut into him. “I lost a kidney. I was in a coma for two weeks. I have a scar that will stay with me for the rest of my life.”

 

“I'm sorry.”

 

“No, you're not.”

 

“No,” Hannibal admitted, “I'm not. You betrayed me.”

 

“I would have let you get away. I _wanted_ you to get away.” Will's serene demeanour slipped, for a few seconds. He'd felt so anguished. He'd been so certain Hannibal would be gone by the time he arrived at his house. That, or dead – killed by Jack. Will hadn't been prepared to stand face to face with the man, and the words falling from Hannibal's lips - “Why _didn't_ you?”

 

“I misjudged you,” Hannibal said contemplatively. “I saw the monster in you, and a chance for friendship, but I never considered how dangerous you could be to _me_. I learned something about myself that night: how blind I can be, when the one I love spins a web around me. I haven't been hurt in a long time. You hurt me, Will. So I had to hurt you in return.”

 

Will wanted to scoff, to argue, to point out that as far as _reciprocity_ was concerned, Hannibal had overreacted, retaliated in ways that could be considered childish, primitive even. _You hurt me, so I hurt you_.

 

He held himself back. They could play the blame game until the century turned: who had started it? Will with his desperate grab for anything that promised stability, or Hannibal, exploiting vulnerability Will had shown him voluntarily? Will in his blindness, hunting serial killers while not seeing the one right before him, or Hannibal, attempting to create a reality he'd longed for since the death of his sister?

 

They'd both looked for something in the other, and in the end, neither of them had gotten what he wanted.

 

“I would like to see the scar,” Hannibal said. “Will you come with me?”

 

“Are you asking because you want to see what you did, or because you can't kill me in a church?”

 

“This is a chapel, not a church. That said, I have no qualms about shedding blood in a house of God.” One corner of Hannibal's mouth lifted in a minuscule smile, then dropped again. “I've made no plans to kill you, Will. I wanted you to find me. I did not envision the future further than that.”

 

Will slid out of the pew. “That makes two of us. Lead the way.”

 

*

 

It was still raining when they stepped out of the Palazzo Reale, a finer drizzle than the heavy downpour from before. Hannibal produced a folding umbrella from somewhere. He looked faintly surprised when Will slipped a hand into the crook of his elbow, making them walk arm in arm.

 

“You used to be averse to people touching you.”

 

“I'm still averse to _people_ touching me.”

 

There was no more conversation for the rest of the way.

 

*

 

Hannibal's lodgings were similar to Will's, though less modest and situated at the top of a Norman-style family house, reached by a steep flight of stairs. The two rooms were nothing like his home in Baltimore, lacking in space, yet even in modesty Hannibal had managed to add a personal touch – flowers in an extravagant vase on the windowsill to liven up the drab curtains, a few small pieces of art scattered about, innocuous but tasteful.

 

He took Will's jacket and hung it up with his own. “I'm afraid I can't extend the full measure of my usual hospitality to you. My current accommodations aren't very accommodating. Wine?”

 

“Better than what I have. And yes, please.” Will meandered through the rooms. The second was set up as a combination dining room/living room/kitchen. The sight of an old-fashioned stove and small kitchen island made him grin – as if Hannibal could ever exist in a place that didn't offer him the means to prepare his own meals. Will eyed the silver pots on the stove. “Been hunting?”

 

“I have refrained, for now.” Hannibal produced a bottle of wine from the cabinet next to the stove. “I am not governed by my urges.”

 

“No, you wouldn't be. You made them part of yourself, rather than the other way around.”

 

“An astute observation. Tell me, Will: why did you kill Freddie Lounds?”

 

There was no reason to lie, to embellish. “She tried to blackmail me. She threatened to drag Alana's name through the mud, if I didn't give her the full story. I don't want anyone to have the full story. Least of all the likes of Freddie Lounds.”

 

“How is she? Alana.”

 

“In a wheelchair.” Will didn't expect Hannibal to show remorse at the news, and wasn't shown any. “Why did you kill Doctor du Maurier?”

 

Hannibal uncorked the bottle with a practised move. “Have you ever wanted something so much you'd risk your life to attain it, Will? Only to have it taken away, and then find yourself with a replacement, who pales in comparison to what could have been?”

 

Will thought back to his attempt at assuming Hannibal's point of view while looking at Bedelia's autopsy report. “You killed her because she wasn't me.”

 

“A rather simplified way of putting it. But, yes.” Hannibal poured two generous measures of wine. “An emotional outbreak on my part, I'm afraid. Bedelia was her own creature, a very intelligent woman. I respected her. All the more because she knew what I was, and still was willing to accompany me.”

 

“Unlike me.”

 

“Unlike you.” Hannibal tipped his glass in Will's direction in salute. “But then, I did tell you I could never entirely predict you. Perhaps I should have heard the warning in my own words, and not trusted you as easily as I did.”

 

Will decided to take that as a compliment, and not a comment on his volatile mental state. He was still stuck in the memory of Bedelia's death in France, curiosity nagging at him. His ability to empathize with killers didn't work like a seer's crystal ball, showing him exact re-enactments, but he could extrapolate from the emotions.

 

_Hannibal as genteel as always, yet preoccupied. Discontent._

 

“What did she ask you? What did she say? What made you,” Will censored 'snap', “kill her?”

 

Hannibal huffed softly under his breath. “She wanted to know if I would ever be able to forget you.”

 

“Could you?”

 

Hannibal looked at him, hard. “Do you have to ask?”

 

Will supposed it was a moot question.

 

They stood and drank wine, the kitchen island between them. The surreality of the situation didn't escape Will's notice; they could have been old friends, enjoying an idle chat after a chance meeting. What would Alana say, if she saw him now – if she could see both of them? Undoubtedly she'd lose whatever faith she had left in Will. The thought left him with a touch of regret, and he said a silent apology to her. He hoped that whatever the future held in store for Alana Bloom, it would help her overcome these events.

 

He hoped she could forget him. And if not that, then at least _understand_.

 

Will finished his wine. He didn't want to think about Alana now. They'd come here for a reason. With steady fingers, he unbuttoned his shirt, letting the halves fall apart to reveal the long scar running across his abdomen, parallel to his belt.

 

Hannibal gazed at it for a long time. “It suits you.”

 

“It's ugly.” Not that he hated it – he was stating a simple fact. It wasn't a very attractive sight.

 

“Only on the outside.” Hannibal rounded the kitchen island, hand extended. “May I?”

 

Involuntarily, Will looked to Hannibal's other hand. The last time Hannibal had reached for him, it had ended in bloodshed. “Yes.”

 

The touch was impersonal, almost clinical. Hannibal ran his fingertips along the length of the scar like a surgeon checking for a break in the skin. He lingered left of Will's navel, where the knife had left an upward curve, rubbing his thumb over the raised tissue, and raised his gaze to Will's eyes.

 

Will took him by the wrist and pulled the hand away. It was easy to step forward, to lean against Hannibal's body, to hook his chin over Hannibal's shoulder, the way Hannibal had enfolded him in his arms after gutting him. He didn't imagine the slight acceleration of Hannibal's heartbeat, the moment Will's weight rested against him, or the brief hesitation before Hannibal raised his arms, letting them wind around Will in return.

 

It was a cautious, hesitant embrace, more so on Hannibal's part than Will's. Awkward, even, until Hannibal _sagged_ , slouched against the kitchen island, and pulled Will tightly into the curve of his body, cupping the back of Will's head in one hand.

 

The intimacy was as repulsive as it was addictive, and though he had initiated it, Will felt caught between the urge to pull away and to burrow in more deeply. The last man before Hannibal to pull Will into an embrace like that had been his father, long, long years ago, and even then those hugs had been far and between, bestowed almost reluctantly.

 

Hannibal wasn't Will's father. Will didn't know yet what he was – what they were becoming – but he knew what he didn't want him to be. And, he still had a point to make.

 

It was the work of only a few seconds to retrieve the corkscrew Hannibal had left on the kitchen island, while pretending to shift for a more comfortable position. Less, to press the sharp tip against Hannibal's belly, right above his belt. Will lifted his head just enough to look down, aware Hannibal had gone still and tense against him. His breath stirred the hair over Will's ear.

 

“I could do it,” Will said. A corkscrew wasn't a very elegant weapon, but with enough force, it could to tremendous damage. The idea of giving Hannibal a scar back was tempting.

 

“You could.” The hand at the back of Will's head moved, long fingers carding gently through his curls.

 

“You _hurt_ me. You killed Abigail.”

 

“And Jack.”

 

Will pressed harder on the corkscrew. The tip pierced through the tight weave of Hannibal's polo shirt, into the skin beneath. Wetness appeared around the tip, black on black. Hannibal's tense posture relaxed by degrees. He made no attempt to stop Will, or to defend himself. It wasn't a show of submission, but simply an acknowledgement of Will's capability to hurt him. _Again_.

 

“Equals,” Will murmured, “or not at all.”

 

Hannibal's free hand folded over Will's holding the corkscrew. “I wouldn't have it any other way.”

 

They stood like that for several minutes, or an aeon. Will pulled away first. “What happens now?”

 

“Whatever you want.”

 

Will glanced at the corkscrew in his hand.

 

There were the practical considerations, of course. Logistics. They couldn't stay in Palermo. It was a good idea to leave Europe entirely. He shuddered inwardly at what he was about to do, what he was thinking _they_ were about to do, yet at the same time, longed for it. A new road was opening before him and he'd taken the first, tentative step, the future sprawling wide open before him, full of wonders and disasters waiting to happen. He was leaving his old life behind, by choice – _his_ choice.

 

That felt good. Liberating. Frightening. The events marking his life hadn't been his choice for such a long time.

 

“I think, for now, I want to get my stuff and bring it back here.” Will looked up, watching Hannibal watch him. “And then I'd like to eat, and get some sleep.”

 

*

 

“I have two tickets for a plane that leaves for Tunisia, in two days,” Hannibal announced, when they returned from Will's rented room. It had stopped raining, and they'd made a detour across one of the many smaller food markets of Palermo.

 

Will sat at the kitchen island, watching Hannibal strip the skin off onions, peel carrots, expertly divide meat into neat slices. He'd offered to help, but Hannibal had gently rebuffed him. They were moving carefully around one another, two monsters feeling out the limits of newly discovered, common ground. _Hunting_ ground. No mentor here, no master. Just them. What they'd had before was dead and gone, and though Will had bridged the distance over the carcass of the past, it would take time for this newness to settle, to firm into a cohesive whole.

 

“ _Two_ tickets. You must have been pretty sure I'd be here, after all.”

 

“I was hopeful.”

 

A mild breeze came through the open window, earthy and wet. “And if I hadn't come?”

 

“I'd have left.” Hannibal looked up from chopping onions. His gaze was open, honest. “You asked me if I could be happy in my mind palace. I could be, within moderation. But I would not have risked my freedom and lingered here indefinitely.”

 

Hannibal laid down the knife, scooped up the slices of meat, the chopped onions and carrots, and placed them in the waiting pan with a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt and pepper. He added a splash of red wine. The steam rising from the pan was appetizing, and Will wondered how long it was until Hannibal procured something other than meat bought over the counter for their table.

 

He rolled that thought around in his head. He should have felt repulsed, but he didn't. For weeks, Will had taken his place at Hannibal's dinner table in Baltimore, fully aware that the meat he was consuming with each meal was likely not from an animal. And not just Will – Jack, too. It had been part of the ruse, to keep Hannibal complacent in the belief that he'd pulled the wool over both their eyes.

 

Will had debated the morality of that before, with Jack, with himself. Who was the greater monster – the cannibal, or the cannibal's guest, knowing exactly where that tender cut of loin originated, yet eating anyway and then asking for seconds?

 

Now the prospect of eating Hannibal's special brand of cuisine stirred little more than a tenaciously clinging shred of guilt in the back of Will's mind, remnants of taboos instilled by society. He felt no compulsion to harvest, yet no aversion to partaking in the harvest, either.

 

It was meat. It was _all_ meat.

 

They ate at the table by the window, Palermo's early evening crowd on the streets outside providing the background music. Conversation was light. When they were done, lingering over wine and small cups of _espresso_ brewed on the stove, and then side by side at the sink, washing the dishes and the pan, Will revisited those errant thoughts he'd kept buried under everything else.

 

...perhaps not such a latent aspect of his personality. Perhaps solely restricted to Hannibal.

 

And perhaps he'd misread that part of their previous interactions completely, because Hannibal tensed again when Will leaned in and up, lightly brushing their lips together. The plate he'd been scrubbing clattered back into the sink.

 

Will pulled away. He hadn't expected to count disappointment among his reactions, in case Hannibal didn't react favourably, but it was welling up quickly. He'd been so _sure_. “I'm sorry. That was -”

 

“Unexpected,” Hannibal said. He reached up, fingertips ghosting along the line of Will's jaw. “Not unwelcome.”

 

The second kiss lasted longer, dispelling Will's disappointment. It was careful, exploring an entirely new set of limits. Will wasn't used to having to lean up, to feel someone's late-day stubble rasp against his own five-day beard, to feel arms with a strength that matched his own hold him up, hold him close.

 

He wasn't used to this, period, his last foray in this direction ending with a rather blunt diagnosis of his mental state and a heavy feeling of inadequacy. And in the months that followed, that particular urge had waned entirely, replaced by different ones.

 

It wasn't bad, just new. It wasn't bad at all. It was Hannibal, tasting of wine and coffee, unhurried, indulgent, _his_.

 

“Come to bed,” Hannibal said when they parted. They'd ended up leaning against the sink, locked together from knees to sternum.

 

Will huffed. “I'm not sure I'm ready for _that_.”

 

“To sleep,” Hannibal clarified, amusement crinkling the corners of his eyes. “We have time.”

 

*

 

In the morning, Hannibal called up the FBI's website on a newly purchased tablet PC. There on the 10 Most Wanted list, sub-category Most Wanted Fugitives, was a new entry. The picture they'd used was from Will's old FBI ID card, showing him with his hair longer than he wore it now, dark shadows under his eyes, a downward tilt to his lips. The reward for his capture was set at a modest ten thousand dollars.

 

“Well,” Will said, “I guess they found Freddie.”

 

*

 

And then –

 

Tunisia, and a thousand new impressions. Heat and sun, and the ever-present danger of discovery, though that was fading fast. Will lost himself in the mournful cries of the _muezzin_ , walking with Hannibal across dusty market places, past baskets filled with spices, offal. Children and dogs followed them, begging for alms.

 

*

 

In Morocco, Will reassembled his cellphone. He turned off GPS tracking. There were a staggering 410 missed calls in the logs, and over a hundred text messages, from Carter Jones, Brian Zeller, Alana, even his supervisor at the FBI Academy. He deleted them all, except the ones from Alana. Those he read, one by one. Hannibal left him to it, giving him privacy. Will walked by himself that night, and whatever showed on his face kept the beggars and the dogs away.

 

He composed a single text message. _Be happy, Alana_. _Don't look for me._ _Be blind._

 

Then he deleted that, too, and tossed the phone into the next trash can he passed.

 

*

 

They stayed two weeks in Guinea-Bissau. A week in Sierra Leone's Freetown, where they arrived right in the middle of a string of murders involving teenage boys, who had been sexually violated before their deaths. Will visited two crime scenes, pretending to be a curious tourist. Hannibal sent the testicles of the culprit, a teacher at a local school, to the police department, along with a cigar box full of incriminating photos the man had taken of his victims prior to killing them.

 

He served Will the teacher's heart for dinner, in a sweet sauce, with a side dish of steamed okra. After the meal, spent under the shade of the trees surrounding their hotel complex bungalow, full and contend, Will tugged Hannibal into the coolness of their climate-controlled bedroom.

 

They'd done little more than kiss and share a bed for the express purpose of sleeping, so far. Will thought it was time to explore further. He'd felt Hannibal's gaze linger on him, and he'd looked in return. He _liked_ what he saw.

 

He took off his shirt, dropped his pants and shorts, and when Hannibal touched him with reverence, Will let all remaining reservations fall to the side. He knew what he wanted. The mechanics would take care of themselves.

 

Hannibal fell on him like a starved man at a banquet, but so _tender_ _ly_. There wasn't an inch of Will's skin he didn't taste, from the soft spot under his ears to his nipples, down to the tender crease where thigh met hip. He kissed along the scar, along the filling length of Will's dick, licked through the fuzzy down at the base, lipped the wrinkly skin of his sac.

 

Then he brought Will to the cruel edge of orgasm with two fingers teasing inside and his throat opening to take him deep, staring up at Will's face hungrily, eyes hot and dark, his lips wet, his cheeks hollow.

 

Half-delirious with pleasure, Will attempted to roll over onto his belly when Hannibal let him slip from his mouth, but a hand on his hip stopped him. Hannibal straddled him, leaning over to the bedside table to retrieve a small bottle of lubricant Will hadn't even known was in their possession.

 

“Always planning ahead, hm?” He tried to infuse his words with an edge of teasing, but managed only breathlessness. His dick was wedged between the firm globes of Hannibal's ass, and the damn sadist was rolling his hips in slow gyrations, keeping him on edge.

 

There would come a time, Will swore to himself, when he would turn the tables. When he would have Hannibal under him desperate and begging, at his mercy.

 

But not today.

 

Today, tonight, was about Will's wants and needs. He needed to come, _now_. His hips bucked erratically while Hannibal smoothed a handful of lube over his dick. No condom. Will wasn't going to care, if Hannibal didn't – they'd broken so many barriers between them already, what was one more? He found a hold on Hannibal's hips, his breath leaving him in a low moan at the tight fit.

 

“Not gonna last,” he pressed out between grit teeth, after Hannibal had lifted himself up and back down once. Already, his climax was a curling heat low in his belly, crawling up his spine, setting fire to his skin. He managed a shaky hand around Hannibal's bobbing length – one hard thrust up into heat, two – Hannibal watching him, intently, eagerly –

 

And came, finally, keening low in the back of his throat.

 

Hannibal kissed his lips, his eyelids, while Will lay panting. Hannibal's hand closed over his between their bodies, and he showed Will how he liked it: firm around the base, with a thumb against the frenulum to tease, gentle over the wet tip. His climax was quieter, leaving him shaking atop Will's recumbent form.

 

They slept tangled up in one another. In the morning, Hannibal bent Will over the bathroom counter, fucking him sweet and slow.

 

*

 

Liberia, then, and finally, the Côte D'Ivoire, the Ivory Coast: Abjidan, on the Ébrié Lagoon.

 

They booked into a hotel, under false names, with false papers Hannibal had paid a small fortune for at their last stop. The hotel was one of those places that seemed to have existed since the beginning of time: colonial charm in all its morbid glory, stiff-backed waiters in red livery, marble staircases and lavish decorations. They went to dinner in a large hall with crystal chandeliers overhead; Will went to the beach and returned with a sunburn.

 

Baltimore had been snow and ice and rain, stasis. Abjidan was sun-baked, a city of opposites, with an ultra-modern centre of skyscrapers and slums, mosques rubbing shoulders with Christian churches, places where tourists loitered and oases of unexpected silence.

 

The hotel was only a temporary place for them to stay – Hannibal was already looking into a more permanent residence, eyeing a sprawling 19th century French villa at the edge of the lagoon with intent and a spark of interest in his eyes, when he mentioned it over a lunch of fruit and cold meats – but the country felt like a place Will could get used to.

 

There were a lot of stray dogs.

 

There were a lot of boats in the lagoon, too, with motors that needed fixing. Hannibal seemed to possess unlimited funds, but Will wasn't going to live off of him. They squabbled over that – Hannibal insisting he had more than enough money, an inheritance from his uncle, _Count_ Lecter, that the FBI hadn't known about and subsequently not frozen along with his other assets – but Will had already made up his mind.

 

*

 

“Could you be happy here?”

 

They were on their second week at the hotel. Negotiations with the owner of the colonial villa were looking to end in their favour. Hannibal spent hours at the table, drawing up plans for his new kitchen and the dining room. All state of the art, of course. They would have to keep a low profile, even here, but that didn't mean they had to live in a hovel.

 

At Will's question, Hannibal looked up. “A little late now, to have doubts. I've already ordered the stove.”

 

“I don't have doubts.” Will had been sprawling on the rug in front of the fireplace, immersed in a grammar book on the official local language. If they were going to stay here, he might as well adapt. Hannibal, of course, spoke fluent French. “Where do you see us, ten years from now? Twenty?”

 

“Here. Content. Fat and lazy, most likely – the local cuisine is exquisite.” Hannibal twitched a smirk. “A hundred dogs in our yard, if I let you have your way.”

 

It was a pleasing image. “And if the FBI catches up with us?”

 

Hannibal shrugged. “Then we move on. Who knows, we might even meet Carter Jones, one day. I'd love to have him for dinner.” He capped and dropped his pen, turning sideways in the chair to stretch his legs. He'd taken to wearing light cotton suits, reclaiming some of his former dressing habits, but his feet were bare. Will watched his long toes curl. “Where do you see us?”

 

Will smiled. “Together.”

 

*

 

END

 


End file.
